| Date | Event |
| January 18 |
The Peanuts special You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown is broadcast by NBC. It will prove to be the last new Peanuts special broadcast on television for eight years until A Charlie Brown Valentine airs on ABC. |
| January 23 |
CBS, which had broadcast National Football League games since 1956, broadcasts its final telecast, with the Dallas Cowboys defeating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, 38–21. CBS had been outbid during December 1993 for rights to the NFC package by the Fox Network. CBS, however, would regain NFL rights (taking over the AFC rights from NBC) in 1998. |
| January 31 |
Bill Cosby returned to NBC for a two-hour movie, The Cosby Mysteries, after ending production of The Cosby Show for 21 months. |
| February 1 |
American pay television channel Encore initiates seven new themed multiplex channels (Westerns, True Stories, Love Stories, WAM!: America's Kidz Network, Action and Mystery), primarily on TCI cable systems, becoming the first premium service to offer themed premium services. Starz, which features more recent movie fare than its parent channel, is also initiated on this date as part of the Encore multiplex and would later become a rival to HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and The Movie Channel. |
| February 19 |
During the opening monologue on Saturday Night Live, guest host Martin Lawrence makes sexually explicit jokes about female genitalia and feminine hygiene, which results in NBC banning him from appearing on the network (for the next year) and SNL (for life). In repeats of the episode, the offending section of the monologue is replaced by a title card read by an off-screen player, saying that although SNL is neutral about the issues mentioned by Lawrence, network policy prevents his remarks from being re-broadcast, and that the incident almost cost the entire cast of SNL their jobs. |
| March 11 |
Viacom assumes control of Paramount Pictures, which includes Paramount Television. Later during the year Paramount/Viacom announces plans to initiate a new over-the-air television network, in conjunction with United Television. The new network, the United Paramount Network (or UPN for short), is initiated during January 1995. |
| March 31 |
Madonna appears on the Late Show with David Letterman and makes headlines for going on a profanity-laden tirade—one of the most censored events of American TV talk-show history, swearing 13 times during the interview. Though infamous, it results in some of the highest ratings of Letterman's late-night career. (Robin Williams would later describe the segment as a "battle of wits with an unarmed woman.") |
| April 14 |
Turner Classic Movies channel, an extension of Turner Broadcasting System debuted. |
| April 17 |
ABC/Fox affiliate KARD in Monroe, Louisiana disaffiliates from ABC and moves its secondary affiliation with Fox to primary status, in the first unofficial affiliation swap of the 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment. ABC will not have an affiliate in Monroe until KAQY signs-on in 1998. |
| April 24 |
Barney the Dinosaur makes his commercial network television debut on the NBC prime-time special spin-off program Bedtime with Barney: Imagination Island. However, the song "I Love You" wasn't sung in the special due to a lawsuit about the song at the time; this explains why "I Love You" wasn't used in Barney's Favorites Vol. 2, as it uses songs from the spin-off. Surprisingly enough after this special aired, the 1965 film The Sound of Music was also included in the lineup for a Family Friendly Night of the '90s |
| April 28 |
The Simpsons broadcasts its 100th episode. |
| May 23 |
Star Trek: The Next Generation concludes its seven-year run with the series finale, All Good Things... The two-hour finale was broadcast at 6 p.m. on most affiliates, rather than as part of the prime time lineup. |
| June 1 |
FX begins broadcasting. This was first cable TV network to be owned by Fox. |
| First formal broadcast of Newsworld International. |
| June 10 |
The Pay television content descriptors, which describe the varying degrees of suggestive or explicit content in series and movies being broadcast by pay cable channels, are first implemented by HBO and Cinemax. Showtime and The Movie Channel added the system a month later. |
| June 11 |
World Wrestling Federation wrestler Hulk Hogan signs a deal with World Championship Wrestling on a live broadcast of WCW Saturday Night. |
| June 17 |
With all major networks providing live coverage, former NFL player O. J. Simpson, suspected in the murder of his former wife and her acquaintance, flees from police with his friend Al Cowlings in his white Ford Bronco; the low-speed chase ends with Simpson's surrender to police at his Brentwood mansion. |
| DirecTV, a direct broadcast satellite service, begins broadcasting in Jackson, Mississippi. |
| July 4 |
America's Talking, a talk and information channel (and forerunner to MSNBC), launched. |
| July 12 |
The 1994 Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Pittsburgh is broadcast on NBC (NBC's first Major League Baseball telecast since Game 5 of the 1989 National League Championship Series). The game is the first production of The Baseball Network, a joint venture between MLB, NBC, and ABC. Hampered by its much-criticized regional policy for game broadcasts and a players' strike that cancels the 1994 postseason, the venture will be termed a failure even before it dissolves at the end of the 1995 season. |
| August 12 |
The soap opera All My Children broadcasts a memorial episode for original cast member Frances Heflin, who died during June. The memorial is in the form of a funeral service for Heflin's character, Mona Kane Tyler. |
| Fox broadcasts its first National Football League broadcast, a pre-season game in San Francisco between the 49ers and Denver Broncos. |
| August 21 |
HBO broadcasts a concert appearance by Barbra Streisand, the entertainer's first public concert in 27 years. |
| September 1 |
The Independent Film Channel debuted. |
| September 11 |
The 46th Primetime Emmy Awards were presented on ABC. |
| September 12 |
The first television stations involved in the 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment, as part of larger affiliation deal between Fox and New World Communications, change their network affiliation. WDAF-TV in Kansas City ends its 45-year affiliation with NBC and WJW-TV in Cleveland ends its longtime affiliation with CBS, in both cases to become Fox affiliates. WDAF and WJW also trade their former affiliations with Fox affiliates KSHB-TV (becoming an NBC affiliate) and WOIO (becoming a CBS affiliate). Meanwhile, in Phoenix, KSAZ-TV (channel 10) ends its 40-year affiliation with CBS, and temporary becomes an independent station, 3 months before becoming a Fox affiliate. CBS then signs an affiliation deal with former independent station KPHO-TV (channel 5), reuniting CBS with its original Phoenix affiliate, and ABC signs with former Fox outlet, KNXV-TV (channel 15) through an affiliation deal between ABC and The E.W. Scripps Company, owners of KNXV. This leaves the former ABC affiliate, KTVK (channel 3), to become an independent station (briefly becoming a WB affiliate in January 1995 until KASW-TV (channel 61) signs on a year later and assumes the WB affiliation from KTVK, who enters into a LMA with the station). |
| Original Family Feud host Richard Dawson returns to the series after nine years, replacing his successor, Ray Combs; the show also expands from half-hour to full-hour episodes. |
| October 31 |
fxM: Movies from Fox debuts as a spinoff of FX, broadcasting movies from the Fox library on a round-the-clock basis. |
| December 1 |
The Game Show Network, a network devoted to broadcasting classic game shows 24 hours a day, debuts. |
| Home & Garden Television debuted. |
| December 8 |
The 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment continues as WITI in Milwaukee ends its CBS affiliation after 37 years to become a Fox affiliate. After failing to procure affiliations with Milwaukee's other major stations, CBS eventually aligns with former independent station WDJT (channel 58). Former Fox affiliate WCGV-TV (channel 24), who had turned down CBS, briefly becomes an independent station again before affiliating with UPN a month later. |
| December 11 |
The 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment continues as WJBK in Detroit and WAGA-TV in Atlanta end their longtime affiliations with CBS and switch their affiliations to Fox. As in Milwaukee, CBS struggles to find replacement stations in both areas, and eventually align with former independent stations WGPR (which CBS also acquires and renames WWJ-TV) and WGCL (then WGNX). Former Fox affiliates WKBD in Detroit and WATL in Atlanta both become independents briefly before respectively joining UPN and The WB one month later. |
| December 12 |
The 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment continues as WTVT (channel 13) in St. Petersburg, Florida ends its longtime CBS affiliation to become a Fox affiliate. Through an affiliation deal between CBS and Citicasters, the network joins the former ABC affiliate, WTSP-TV (channel 10) while ABC aligns with former Fox affiliate WFTS-TV (channel 28) through an affiliation deal between ABC and The E.W. Scripps Company, owners of WFTS-TV. |