1944 in television

The year 1944 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1944.

Events

• May 22 – The FCC increases its limits for single ownership of television stations from three to five.
• May 25 – First commercial U.S. telecast by relay. Eddie Cantor is broadcast from NBC's Manhattan station WNBT to Philco's Philadelphia station WPTZ, via an automatic relay tower halfway between the two cities. (The AT&T coaxial cable between the cities is unavailable because of the war.) NBC cuts off Cantor in the middle of his rendition of the song "We're Having a Baby, My Baby and Me" when it finds some of the lyrics and his gestures "objectionable."
• August 16 – Paris télévision – Fernsehsender Paris stops broadcasting. Broadcasting resumes in October 1944 under the name Télévision française with the same technical equipment.
• August 16 – John Logie Baird demonstrates the world's first color television picture tube. Color films are shown from a flying-spot scanner.

Debuts

• Missus Goes a Shopping premieres (1944–1949).
• The World in Your Home (1944–1948).

Television shows

Births

• January 6 – Bonnie Franklin, actress and director
• January 11 – Shelley Fabares, actress and singer
• January 23 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor
• February 3 – Trisha Noble, Australian singer and actress
• February 8 – Roger Lloyd Pack, English actor
• February 13 – Stockard Channing, actress
• February 29 – Dennis Farina, actor
• March 26 – Diana Ross, singer and actress
• March 28 – Ken Howard, actor
• April 4 – Craig T. Nelson, actor
• April 29 – Richard Kline, actor and director
• May 14 – George Lucas, director and producer
• June 4 – Michelle Phillips, singer and actress
• July 8 – Jeffrey Tambor, actor
• July 15 – Jan-Michael Vincent, actor
• August 7 – John Glover, actor
• August 11 – Ian McDiarmid, Scottish actor
• August 13 – Kevin Tighe, actor
• September 13 – Jacqueline Bisset, English actress
• October 28 – Dennis Franz, actor
• November 17 – Danny DeVito, actor, comedian, director and producer
• December 2 – Cathy Lee Crosby, actress
• December 11 – Lynda Day George, actress
• December 17 – Bernard Hill, English actor