The following is a list of events affecting American television in 2021. Events listed include television show debuts, finales, and cancellations; channel launches, closures, and re-brandings; stations changing or adding their network affiliations; and information about controversies and carriage disputes.
Notable events
January
Date
Event
Source
8
After 36 years, Alex Trebek's final episode of Jeopardy! airs. Trebek died of stage IV pancreatic cancer on November 8, 2020, ten days after the episode was recorded. Beginning with the January 11 episode of the program, a series of guest hosts headed by the show's highest-winning champion, Ken Jennings, will act as the program's host for the remainder of the season. Jennings himself will host the first few weeks of episodes that will be aired following Trebek's last episode.
Nickelodeon airs its first ever NFL game, a special version aimed at younger viewers, the wildcard playoff between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears, which added classic Nickelodeon gags such a CGI-created slime cannons which sprayed the end zones when a touchdown was scored, and prerecorded explanations of penalties from the star of Young Sheldon, Iain Armitage, with announcer and former NFL star Nate Burleson making special analogies, such as successfully completely football plays to childhood activities like studying in school. Although the game was aimed at children, it was reportedly enjoyed more so by their Generation X and millennial parents, who grew up watching the channel in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 63rd Grammy Awards will air on CBS with Trevor Noah as the host. The awards were originally scheduled to be held on January 31, but were moved to March after Los Angeles County began experiencing a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
All remaining analog television stations will be required, by FCC mandate, to shut off their analog signals and only broadcast in digital. This transition comes twelve years and one month after the digital transition for full-power television stations in 2009; only existing low-power broadcasters have been allowed to broadcast in analog since then. The few remaining analog low-power stations are mostly distant rural translators in large geographical television markets and a few urban-area stations operating primarily as radio stations on 87.7 FM; digital television is incompatible with either digital or analog radio, which will force the 87.7 stations to cease their radio operations.
The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan are scheduled to take place after their 1-year postponement was made on March 24, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. NBC and its cable networks will carry coverage in the United States. Although the International Olympic Committee stated it would be held as scheduled, postponement of the Summer Olympics to the following year was made in March. The new opening/closing ceremony date range was announced on March 30, 2020.
The 74th Tony Awards are to air on CBS. Originally scheduled for June 7, 2020 from Radio City Music Hall, the ceremony was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 25. Since then, an early June nominations announcement was postponed due to the George Floyd riots, and Broadway theatre has shut down for the remainder of 2020, rendering any traditional ceremony with full cast performances and attendance likely impossible. On August 21, 2020, it was announced the ceremony will be held virtually sometime in the fall, with nominations revealed October 15 and ceremony details to be announced on a later date. The ceremony would later be postponed to early 2021 as a result of the continued uncertainty of the pandemic.
On July 24, 2020, the Twitter accounts of G4TV and G4's Attack of the Show! and X-Play, reactivated to post a teaser video of a G4 revival in some form, slated for 2021 (the form of distribution, whether as a return as a wireline network or a digital component of a service such as Peacock, was not divulged). The teasers were timed for Comic-Con@Home, the first virtual streaming edition of the annual fan convention, San Diego Comic-Con International. Consequently, G4's website also redirected to a nonstop game of Pong (which if won, redirects to a mailing list sign up for updates), once again reflecting back to the network's original launch in 2002 and their shutdown in 2014.
Following its acquisition of the network's satellite slot from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Allen Media Group is to relaunch the former channel space of family-oriented digital multicast network Light TV as TheGrio.TV (branded after the Black cultural news and entertainment website acquired by parent company Entertainment Studios in 2016), adopting a focus around movies, television series, news and lifestyle content aimed at African American audiences. There has been some confusion however, as Light TV continues to run on some affiliates and online, while some former Light TV affiliates have stopped carrying the network in the run-up to TheGrio.tv.
Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame announced in an interview on the November 9, 2018 edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon they were returning to the fold of the former Scripps Networks Interactive networks now owned by Discovery, Inc. to launch a new full-time network based on their Magnolia lifestyle brand after taking a year's hiatus to consider other offers outside of HGTV. The Gaines will have the minority stake in the network. Discovery announced on January 16, 2020 it would launch October 4 in the same year. Coronavirus-caused filming restrictions that would affect the network's debut lineup forced Discovery to delay the network's launch date indefinitely on April 21, 2020, with some programming to launch as a part of Discovery+ instead to build word-of-mouth for the linear network launch.
On January 12, 2021, CNN announced that it would shut down the CNN Airport network, which was available in numerous airports across the United States. The network, which carried a mixture of family-friendly news and entertainment programs from select WarnerMedia networks, had been seeing declining viewership since the financial crisis of 2007–08 as a result of the increased proliferation of Wi-Fi-enabled devices; the decline was accelerated in 2020 when global commercial air travel declined greatly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In late 2019, when owner Entravision Communications released its third-quarter earnings, it announced that it would not pay the 20-year lump sum renewal for the station's license. As a result, the station is expected to cease operations at the end of its concession in December 2021 after broadcasting as an English language station for most of its 42-year history. The closure of XHRIO-TDT leaves Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon to depend on American television stations for English-language content.
Actress best known as Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show. Also recurring roles on Charlie's Angels and Hot Line and a voice role on The Blues Brothers Animated Series and several TV movies.