text:
Wikipedia talk:Multilingual statistics

NOTE: Our pre-2004 discussions are now archived.

Some percentages
19-12-2003

+ than 100,000 (en:): 184713 ( 46.06 % ) + than 10,000: 178830 ( 44.60 % ) 42284+22133+21867+18373+18282+17334+14435+13893+10229 + than 1000: 32615 ( 8.13 % ) 4914+4910+3495+3486+2948+2461+2372+2315+1174+1165+1159+1152+1064 others: 4828 ( 1.20 % ) 973+756+714+713+644+546+482 TOTAL: 400986 - 04-01-2004 + than 100,000: 189273 ( 45.40 % ) + than 10,000: 186636 ( 44.77 % ) 43883+24305+22669+19026+19009+17928+14733+14616+10467 + than 1000: 36512 ( 8.76 % ) 5349+4950+3665+3515+3123+3052+2959+2511+1451+1333+1239+1199+1106+1060                                                                               others: 4461 ( 1.07 % ) 907+794+765+723+660+612 TOTAL: 416882 - So other Wikipedia languages grow faster than the English one. Yann 14:46, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I just thought I should mention that despite Latin apparently having over 1600 articles, most of them are either extremely small stubs, or things that seem somehow out of place in Latin (like ISO codes...I guess they are technically fine, but what is the point of that, really?). Another problem is that there very few people there seem to actually know Latin. I barely know any, and I'm a sysop there. I don't know if you'd want to take it out of the count, and it's only 1600 or so anyway...but now you know, just in case. There's a lot we could do with a Latin wikipedia, but unfortunately nothing productive is going on there right now. Adam Bishop 00:38, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually, latin is not the only language Wikipedia that has a lot of stubs or rather infrastructural articles, like calendar days, years, decades and so on. It would be hard to count them - Erik Zachte tried it before with much more detailed statistics, but, pitily, they weren't updated sind September 2003. So far, this is the best I could do. --denny vrandečić 14:46, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)

 * There were updated! A week ago stats for Jan 20, 2004 were available. Since the most recent server switch old stats reappeared. When all new servers are set up the stats will be refreshed again, weekly or so. Right now I don't want to bother Brion Vibber (the site admin), he has enough to do right now. Erik Zachte 17:56, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

- It would be really great if this stats could be sent to intlwiki-l list (let say once per week).

The [Irish wiki] is finally alive, with a couple of articles behind it, and I'm waiting on the LanguageGa.php to be uploaded. Could it be added to the statistics please? --Kwekubo 19:01, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I'll add it to the rankings on March 1, and in the normal statistics on Feb 22 - that's my plan :) If you like to have it earlier, just go ahead and do it! --denny vrandečić 14:58, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Do you like the idea of colorcoding the tables? If not, put it back again, or discuss it here. I though it would be nice, but after seeing it, I am not really sure... --denny vrandečić 18:09, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

 * I think it's a great idea. It makes it visually very clear which ones have moved up or down the list. Angela. 12:21, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)~

The "Fastest Growing Wikipedias" section contains the comment : "This measure is somewhat biased towards recently founded wikipedias, where an initially small number of articles can yield a staggering percentage increase without adding too many new articles numerically." I agree with this comment, and I have an idea on what to do about it. Just throwing an idea up for discussion: Perhaps we could have two such lists - the present list (ranking the wikipedias by percentage growth), and a second list ranking the wikipedias in order of the absolute number of new articles. As you can see, a row has been added to the other tables showing the number of new articles in each wikipedia for the first quarter of 2004; perhaps we could use those figures as the bases for the second list. Tell you what - I'll do it myself in the next few days if I can find time; if anybody wants to beat me to it, I'd be more that happy-:). In addition, perhaps we could restrict the present list of fastest growing wikipedias to those wikipedias which already had more than 1000 articles on 19 December (or whatever other date we choose; I submit that 1 January 2004 would be a good starting date).   Davidcannon 01:06, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I went ahead and did a list of the top 10. It was mostly the same as the top 10 Wikipedias for total articles, with a few exceptions. Jeff8765 22:46, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Turkmen page hasn't actually been started yet; the front page, and the only other article, are in Turkish and seem to have been placed as a stopgap. It shouldn't be listed on the stats.

I don't think Yoruba exists either; the 27 articles are a placeholder page in English and the 26 letters of the (English) alphabet with equivalents in other languages. Some may consider that to count, but I would suggest that there has to be at least some text in Yoruba before you can say the Yoruba Wikipedia's been started...

http://csb.wikipedia.org/ is missing. 217.98.142.167 17:33, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, it's up and running now - 130 articles today. David Cannon 22:56, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

japan internet growth???
Someone wrote: The high growth rate in Japan is due in part to the explosion of internet access in that country. AFAIK Japan has long since been near the top of internet penetration rankings. Do you mean explosion in broadband access (i.e. >= 512kbit/s unmetered home connections)? When? Could you give a URL please?

Or do you mean China (PRC) - that would make much more sense to me? If PRC is the subject, then really we should expect zh.wikipedia to eventually get close to the en. version. Hindi/urdu is one of the world's biggest languages too, but i still haven't installed indix (or whatever it's called, i even forgot that, but i did download it...) so i can't read devanagari properly... :( Boud 22:24, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I could have been mistaken. What I meant was that almost every household in Japan is now "wired." David Cannon 22:56, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Sprints are a fake
Sprints like in the Ukrainian Wikipedia (before in the basque Wikipedia) are caused by hundreds or thousands of pages which contain nothing more than dates and template-like entries of years, but no actual text. You can easily see that by repeatedly clicking "Randompage" in these Wikipedias. That works even if you do not understand the slightest bit of the language. They should not be mentioned here in such a positive way. Erdal Ronahi 20:33, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I understand what you mean. In the case of the Ukrainian Wikipedia, however, I actually tried out an article by the one user responsible for the uploading (in a single day) of about a thousand articles.  The article I tried out turned out to be a LONG biography.  Unable to read Ukrainian, I have no idea who the biography spoke of, but it was clear from the formatting (birth and death dates, etc) that it was indeed a biography.  The other uploads of that user appear to have been biographies also.  I have not been able to verify this, but I think that user made use of a bot to upload en mass biographies from some other source.

 * As for the bulgarian sprint, they were the work of a bot named "Robo5" - which appears very similar to our own Rambot. The several thousand articles uploaded were about towns in Bulgaria - packed with facts and figures.  Human editors now have some solid raw material to work on.

 * With all due respect to your "dates and template-like entries of years," such articles are valuable infrastructe. You may not be able to live inside a road, but you'll have trouble getting to your home without it.  Such infrastructure creates a framework for the kind of articles that you (and I) would prefer to see. David Cannon 12:39, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Spelling
Is it possible to change "Belarussian" to "Belarusian"? I couldn't change it there, because it was not a part of the page source. Thanks! --rydel 00:35, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Done. That's the page Multilingual ranking September 2004. You may want to change the spelling in the older stats as well, feel free to do so. --denny vrandečić 12:57, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

 * Great. Thank you. --rydel 17:29, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Frisian?
What about frisian wiki - dissapeared from rankings however counts 1132 artls??? I post this question to Davidcannon, but with no answer. BTW I'm nor frisian :-), but Polish, and when I created polish mutation of october ranking I finded that Frisian wiki is absent. Ency 15:24, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

 * I apologize. I only received your message yesterday, and have had little time to get back to you.  I believe several languages have been overlooked.  I know how to edit the table, but I would rather leave it to Denny, because adding new languages would upset all of his calculations.  I don't have the time to recalculate everything myself, and feel it would be vandalism make changes that would render the current calculations incorrect.  It might be best to ask Denny if he has time to check and add whatever languages are missing, or else just wait until the November update. David Cannon 21:55, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I've just realized that the two top tables (on which I'm presently the main volunteer) are the ones from which Frisian was missing (from what you wrote on my talk page, I thought it was Denny's table - I'll have to check that one also). I've corrected the top two, anyway.  The correction will show up in about 24 hours when the cache clears. David Cannon 23:55, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * David, all is OK., thanks on befalf of the Frisians :-)) Ency 12:50, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

 * For some reason Welsh wiki is showing as only 1129 articles in the bottom table, and a more accurate 2648 in the main table! -- Arwel 23:20, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * We'll have to ask Denny about that one. I know the larger figure is accurate.  Unfortunately, the counter of a given Wikipedia is not up to date if one is not logged in.  I don't know whether Denny was able to log in or not.  In the past, I wasn't either - it was only for the last edit (1 October) that I created accounts in each language and logged in.  It could be, of course, that the Welsh data got swapped with some other language.  We'll have to check. David Cannon 23:55, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Corrected it (I hope) :) --denny vrandečić 14:14, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

November 1st stats
I downloaded the stats for 1 November yesterday, and I have been formatting them off-line. They will be uploaded when I get home from work tonight - so please don't worry:-) David Cannon 00:37, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Done (24 hours ago, actually, but forgot to announce it here). David Cannon 12:46, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why can't we have a bot do this job now? It seems like a much less complex job than the one that Rambot did with the US towns and cities… – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 05:10, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

wrong naming
Every language is listed here with their English name (plus the code inside parantheses) expect Persian. For the Persian language is the local name "Farsi" used instead of its English name: Persian. For example German is listed under German not Deutsch, and Finnish is listed under Finnish and not Suomi. Please correct this anomaly. Thanks. --Mani1 16:51, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have usually heard the language referred to as Farsi when people are speaking English.Jeff8765 04:36, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

updates?
It's the end of January 2005, and the language ranking reflect the situation as of end of November 2004. What happenned? Are you planning to update this table? --rydel 20:46, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Um, I look after the first two tables on the page (the tables giving the monthly statistics and the number of new articles). Denny looks after the table giving the language ranking.  As Denny's table is much more detailed than mine, it may take him longer to organize it.  You could always get in touch with him. David Cannon 22:04, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I will update the tables as soon as I have the time to do that, but these days it is really stuffed - reviews, project meetings, lectures, writing -- I hope to have the time soon, but I can't promised. I only can promise, it is not forgotten :) --denny vrandečić (hp) (talk) 12:16, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

 * Ok. Thanks. :) --rydel 23:02, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Milestone" divisions irregular
What is going on with these divisions?

 * 1k 5k 10k 20k 50k 100k 200k 300k 400k 500k

The pattern is irregular and doesnt make logical sense. We should switch it to a roughly logarithmic scale (with decimal adjustment) to

 * 1k 2k 5k 10k 20k 50k 100k 200k 500k

It would make more logical sense and I suspect we would see a more fair distribution (Ie english wiki wouldnt be three steps ahead of german). 15:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Agreed, and besides that, I think the past milestones should be kept. For instance, we would still be able to see when English reached the 100k milestone Gaspa 12:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

 * This is the system we now have. Keeping past milestones would make the table extremely long - if you are interested in past milestones, they are listed on meta. Warofdreams talk 13:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Japanese at 100,000
The Japanese Wikipedia reached the 100,000st Article on 11 Feb, 2005.

Statistics page needs to be updated
The section "Rankings" has to be updated. The status here is still end of 2004. Also if you click on the field of January 2005, all you get is a short version with top ten. The full table should be kept as in the previous months.

Additionally I would also propose a ranking order in the "Number of Milestone Articles" such as: 1k,2k,5k,10k,20k,50k,100k,200k,500k etc.

Ossetic
I wonder, why the Ossetic is not in the list of languages? The http://os.wikipedia.org appeared on the last day of February...
 * I have to update the list - when I have time. I'll get around to it ASAP. David Cannon 00:14, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Friulian in the ranking section
Please add Friulian wiki (fur) to the ranking section; thanks--Klenje 23:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Please update the Rankings section
The lowest section of this page names "Rankings" has not been updated since February. Please update this section of the page for the months march and april as soon as possible.

The easiest would certainly be to update this section of the page frequently whenever the other sections are updated since all other sections are up to date.

My calculations
I've compiled a table ranking all the Wikipedia editions for July 2005; see m:User:Mxn/Wikipedia statistics. I haven't had the time to make it conform to the style that Denny Vrandečić has been using, but it works at least. Also, please note that I took tokipona: out of the rankings once its database was locked. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 7 July 2005 20:48 (UTC)

Rankings
Since the rankings page was not updated since February 2005, i replicated Denny's great work and I now have a script that almost works as well as his. I used it to fill the missing pages from February to July. A few things like ranking diffs and total stats are still missing, but I plan to add them soon. Alfio 9 July 2005 16:26 (UTC)

Wikipedia statistics pages
Does anyone know why the wiki's statistics pages have not been updated since 16th of May? It was a very useful tool, showing a much more true compare of national wiki's and giving a substantial info about the project. Is that possible to gather these data from databases and put them there?

Thanks a lot. Aegis Maelstrom 08:25, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Aegis, wikistats were updated after every database dump, which was every week for a long time, then once a month. In May the database scheme changed again and this time more drastically than ever. Thus wikistats could not be run. Only recently dumps in the new xml format have become available, so I can work on upgrading the stats script yet again. Only this time I have some other things higher on my priority list, like two presentations for wikimania and EasyTimeline updates, which were long overdue. So you'll have to have some patience for yet another one or two months. Cheers, Erik Zachte 11:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not Aegis M, but I too was worried for a while, and had been meaning to ask this... but thank you for the effort and the answer.  Almafeta 22:10, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Khmer Wikipedia
For the last four months, the Khmer Wikipedia (km:) has been listed as having no articles, but in fact it has hovered around 15 articles for some time now. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 08:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

 * See User talk:Mxn.

Italian Wikipedia Article Count
Please check if the Italian Wikipedia really reached 100.000 the last days. Seems a bit a sudden jump by 30.000 from the beginning of September.

 * It's real. They employed a bot that generated 40,000 articles in 12 days.  Some would say they cheated, but then we did too.  I wasn't around when Rambot had his foot on the gas pedal, but people like Angela, André Engels, and Anthere will remember when he took Wikipedia by storm. David Cannon 22:28, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

German missing in official statistics
The official statisitics are currently NOT computed, (or were forgotten on display), for German (Deutsch). Where are they? Whomaintains the statistics script that generate the statisitics form?
 * I don't understand. I see German in every table on this page. - dcljr (talk) 20:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Seems impossible to update Milesstone on statistics page
The last dates I tried to update the milestones several times since Turkish, Arabian, Italian and Polish among others have taken new milestones. If I go to edit, all changes are already ready-made and just needed to be saved. When I save them, I get an updated milestone-table as individual page. However: whenever I enter the complete statistics page where milestones is only one section among many, I always get the old table without changes.
 * Which table or page are you trying to update? The first three tables on this page are updated only every month (or are supposed to be) and shouldn't need updating right now; the last table is already up to date. Maybe you just need to clear your browser's cached version of this page. Try hitting Reload while pressing Shift. That works on some browsers. - dcljr (talk) 00:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm trying to update the last table. I also guess it might be my browser, but I get the updated versions of all the other tables more above. Just the last one seems not to change in my display even I know it is actually changed. So maybe it's only a problem of my PC and I hope it'll solve itself.

To meta
I think this is all meta material, since it shows the statistics concerning all WM projects. -- Dungo ( talk ) 13:06, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Some of the other Wikipedia projects have their own version of these statistics. If Meta was used more often, I would not object to putting it there.  But this page has been on Wiki for over 4 years now (since long before I had anything to do with it), and I think it really does belong here. David Cannon 13:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Waray-Waray Wikipedia stats
I've added the Waray-Waray wikipedia to the table since for some reason it's not there. (It was started on September 25, 2005) --69.228.46.21 21:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Afar stats
For reasons I don't exactly understand, the Statistics page of the Afar encyclopedia has claimed there are 6 articles for months now. But if you will look into it, you will see that the correct number should be "0" -- nor have there been any articles for months, either. Nor are there likely to be, any time soon, considering this is not a literary language, and those who do speak it are taking their herds to the watering holes right about now, not plugged into computers! The incorrect reading of 6 is skewing all the other statistics. I'm not sure why it always says 6 because "Numberofpages" correctly produces "0" on the front page; and it might be explained by someone tinkering with the Mediawiki message for the statistics page, but that doesn't seem to be the case either... What gives?? Codex Sinaiticus 21:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * It's okay now. There really are 6 articles.  The counter on the main page was broken; I've fixed it now.  I was using a counter on my user page, which has always functioned; I never looked at the main page and didn't realize that it wasn't formatted.  Thanks for letting me know. David Cannon 22:59, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Um... if there are 6 articles, where are they?? I'd really like to see them... All I can see from http://aa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Allpages is 3 listings: the Main page, and a couple empty pages... So that's what I mean by the counter is broken... Codex Sinaiticus 23:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Latvian is mislabeled as Taiwanese in Nov. 2005 stats
Just that!

 * I've seen it too. Taiwanese is listed under "Minnan" instead. I corrected it by hand, but the bot or program that generates the page should be fixed, too. -- Mkill 22:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Pages found in most languages
(Excludes Simple English Wikipedia)

It would be interesting to see a list of the pages that exist in the most languages. Probably a list of the English pages with the most interwiki links would do, as it is hard to imagine that there are many pages that exist in most of the languages except for English. Has anyone put together such a list? --67.32.150.213 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've never seen such a list, but below are a few articles that stand out in terms of the number of language versions. Of course, the one that exists in the most languages, by far, is Main Page. At the time of writing, it exists in 250 or so language editions. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 21:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Excluding the Simple English Wikipedia and Moldavian Wikipedia as of 00:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC):

 * Kurów: 362 (Stats, includes 70 languages at Incubator Wiki and elsewhere)
 * True Jesus Church: 332 (Stats, includes 98 languages at Incubator Wiki and elsewhere)
 * Uetersen: 233 (includes 13 languages with ISO codes at Incubator Wiki )
 * Europe: 222
 * Germany: 219
 * United States of America: 216
 * Wikipedia: 211
 * France: 211
 * Asia: 208
 * Curitiba: 206
 * Spain: 205
 * English language: 205
 * Russia: 202
 * Canada: 198
 * Japan: 194
 * Poland: 193
 * United Kingdom: 189
 * Australia: 183
 * Bible: 181
 * Jesus Christ: 171
 * Christianity: 162
 * Africa: 152
 * Italy: 141
 * Lithuania: 132
 * Denmark: 130
 * Mathematics: 130
 * Biology: 129
 * Austria: 128
 * Sweden: 127
 * Finland: 126
 * Geography: 126
 * Belgium: 126
 * Astronomy: 124
 * Norway: 124
 * Portugal: 123
 * Chemistry: 122
 * Netherlands: 121
 * Earth: 121
 * Hungary: 121
 * History: 120
 * Greece: 119
 * Romania: 119
 * India: 119
 * Switzerland: 118
 * Bulgaria: 118
 * Estonia: 118
 * Albania: 118
 * European Union: 117
 * French language: 116
 * Iceland: 116
 * Islam: 116
 * Brazil: 114
 * Czech Republic: 114
 * Luxembourg: 114
 * Latvia: 114
 * Philosophy: 112
 * Egypt: 112
 * Argentina: 111
 * Malta: 111
 * Ukraine: 110
 * Belarus: 109
 * German language: 108
 * Slovakia: 107
 * Peru: 107
 * Croatia: 106
 * Liechtenstein: 105
 * Mexico: 105
 * Language: 105
 * Israel: 105
 * Iran: 105
 * Slovenia: 104
 * Chile: 104
 * Armenia: 102
 * South Africa: 102
 * Ireland: 102
 * Turkey: 101
 * Religion: 101

--Additions by ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC) --Note -- several other editors who have not listed themselves are keeping this list updated -- thanks to all...! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC) --Additions by --G. Campbell 00:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Why no update?
Today is 17th May already. Why still don't have the statistics on 1st May? -- Kevinhksouth 03:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

 * sigh I think I'll start taking snapshots of List of Wikipedias at midnight on the 1st and updating the ranking table (the third one down) with that, if I happen to be at the computer then. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately still no update and already June. Hope there will be updates soon for those two months and wish that we would be able to update more regular. Worked well the past months before 89.51.222.58 01:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)*

 * Hello, I have been generating the rankings table for the last year, using the data from the other tables. Since May and June data are still missing, I have switched the data source to meta:List_of_Wikipedias. Data for June is basically OK, while the May table needs to be interpolated and will not be accurate. Additionally, I noted that there are several languages missing from the current rankings table. Of course those will be included from now. Alfio 19:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Alfio, just to let you know, your work is being deeply appreciated by me. Great job! - S iva1979 Talk to me  19:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks Alfio. I think the missing languages you're referring to are the ones that were recently added to Wikipedia. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 04:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

growth
Shouldn't it be a good idea to display the grouth percentages (especially for "grouwth (month)" with more digits behind the comma? Now it is difficult to compare the largestst wikipedias? gitaarfreak from the Dutch wikipedia 213.224.145.22 21:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I completely agree. At least when the growth is less than 10%, it would be good to add one digit after the decimal point; this wouldn't even be a space problem. Marcoscramer 08:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

New Wikipedias
The october update doesn't contain any of the 20 new Wikipedias that were created on September 30. These should be included. Novial, for example, already has 533 articles (though I don't know how many it had on the first of October). Marcoscramer 21:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your attention to this detail. I'll be getting around to it before the October statistics are published at the end of the month, and will backdate the previous months' entries.  David Cannon 09:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Stats
Overall, thanks for compiling these stats, they are some of the most complete, up to date, and interesting for data on language editions. I did notice though that Telugu is reported incorrectly. That edition hit 15,000 articles in September and is over 20k now. Not sure how they did that, but I suspect some well done bots have been at work, given the nature of entries the random page function brings up. - Taxman Talk 01:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Word count
While article count is a good measure for the size of each language section, there are a couple of other statistics that would be interesting such as

 * number of edits
 * number of active editors (for some definition of active)
 * word count and average word count

The most important though would be word count and average word count. Having 100 articles of 100 words is probably much better than having 1000 articles of 10 words.

If for some reason the wikipedia people decide agains it, it would be interesting to read why? Gabor Szabo 14:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The main problem with word count statistics is that they would be biased towards certain languages: Some languages tend to have many short words (like Englisch), others tend to put the same ideas into a smaller number of longer words (like Swahili). This paragraph contains 56 words in English, but would only have 45 in Swahili.
 * It's quite difficult to compare the amount of content written in different languages in a fair way. Maybe if one didn't count grammatical words (like "the", "is", "would" etc) and counted complex words depending on how many ideas they contain (i.e. count "sunset" as two words), then one would get a somewhat fair comparison. But that's already much harder to realise than just counting words.  Marcoscramer 18:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * IMHO the data will be interesting in itself, average word count changes within the same language. I am also sure once this statistics is in place some clever people will come up with a method to normalize the the numbers of the various languages. After all there is some work on word count already. Gabor Szabo 05:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Bytes per article still seems to give a good indicator of how well-developed the articles are at certain Wikipedias, though. Though characters in certain scripts (such as Chinese) take up multiple bytes, that's balanced out by the multiple letters needed to write the average word in a Latin-based alpahbet. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 09:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

why wikimedia stat site does not open
We are unable to open site wikimedi stat; this site was usefull to identify good contributors and apreciate their efforts. Any alternatives available? Mahitgar 12:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

 * See and Wikimedia site feedback. At least for now, you can still get a cached copy by searching Google for that tool. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Table mismatches
There is an important mismatch between the counts of the two first tables (December 2006 Rankings and Article count, monthly totals). Looking at the former, one can calculate (Articles total subtracted by New articles in month) that in the beginning of November there were 3014 Lombard articles, while the latter table says only 341 (11 % of the former). Is this just a difference in the date of the database dump or something else?

Another problem is that the following languages have different names in the two tables, which makes alphabetical browsing in some of the cases a bit complicated: arc (Aramaic or Assyrian Neo-Aramaic), bar (Bavarian or Austro-Bavarian), bj (Bhojpuri or Bihari), kg (Congo or Kongo), dv (Divehi or Dhevi), fo (Faroese or Faeroese), vls (West Flemish or Flemish), glk (Gilaki or Gileki), ms (Malaysian or Malay), minnan (Minnan or Taiwanese), mus (Muskogee or Muscogee), rmy (Vlax Romani or Romany), sg (Sangro or Sango), ii (Yi or Sichuan Yi), zea (Zealandic or Zeelandic). In addition, rm is listed two times in the latter table under the names Raeto-Romance and Rumansh (the article counts of the former are the same as in the first table). Lastly, the following languages exist only in the first table, not in the latter: Akan, Klingon, Lak, Tokipona (the last one seems to contain no articles, not even a main page, even though the article count says 239). Malhonen 12:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I handle only 2 of the 3 tables. However, the numerical mismatch can be explained by timing: I may have updated "my" tables at one time of day, while the other table may have been updated earlier (or later) the same day.  The Lombard wikipedia is a case in point: on a single day, thousands of articles were transferred to it from the incubator, so depending on what time of day the source was checked, the figures could be quite different.  Your other query: sorry, i deal only with the monthly statistics and the new articles tables, so i cant help you with the other one. David Cannon 13:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

100,000,000 edit counts! Yeehah!
Again another Wikipedian statistical phenomenon has arrived! However, vandalisms and inactive users aside. First off for mine third compliment and perhaps the forth for this Wikipedia itself, I truly praise, commend and greatly congratulate this English Wikipedia once again for surpassing yet anoher Wiki-record of the One Hundred Millionth (or in figures: 100,000,000 ) mark of the total Wikipedians' Edit Counts!!! Yet this whopping number of what both users and Wikipedians have made up of this big free encyclopedia ever since July 2002AD and yet they never stop growing (as stated and based on/in the Wikipedian User Statistics)! WOW, what else can I say to express here, man!!? Thus, Congratulations and Kudos to the English Wikipedia! Keep the numbers going and keep on editing and contributing for more! Yaaahooooo!!! --onWheeZierPLot 00:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Malay wikipedia not Malaysian wikipedia
It's Malay wikipedia not Malaysian. 60.48.247.210 08:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Number of articles in different languages
Hi all, is there any way to find out, what articles have an equivalent in other languages. To be more specific, I am interested in the number of en.wiki articles that have a Czech equivalent. I think this would be an interesting thing to see how many articles are specific to one particular language and how many are common to many languages. Thank you --Jamlc 20:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of date...
Any specific reason the stats are so badly out of date? Mi kk er (...) 17:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Old Belarusian
Given that Old Belarusian (cf Old English) is not a previously existing form of Belarusian, but refers to the old wiki formerly known as be but moved to be-x-old, i would suggest finding a more appropriate name for describing the old wiki. Feel free to point me to a discussion about this elsewhere. --SteveMtl 20:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe, it will be correct to name it Belarusian (taraškevica), as it is latinisation of its current Cyrillic name: Беларуская (тарашкевіца). Btw, "new" belarusian wiki didn't exist (except as in incubator) before March 26, 2007, so you need to re-make tables and charts too. --Bełamp 09:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Idea: activity in various languages
It could be interesting to add another two columns to the languages statistics table - roughly estimated number of the native speakers of the particular language and (the ratio of articles)/(the number of native speakers).

Persian vs. Farsi
It's not Farsi in english. It's Persian. Is this chart generated automatically or I should edit it manually? Hessam 17:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Where is it called Farsi in English? I've always heard it as Farsi.  The US military calls it Farsi, as do the major interpretation and translation companies.  aremisasling (talk) 21:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Update
This page is not more updated. The last update was on June, 1. Any reason why? Where can I read up to date statistic? Thank you.--Vicpeters 10:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, I think it was 1 July actually. The sheer number of languages to be tracked makes it more practical to do it on a six-monthly basis now than a monthly basis. David Cannon 10:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

How many users are actually able to update this page? Seems there are few who know how to update data. Personally do I like the monthly updates very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.88.232.134 (talk) 11:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Is automation feasible? I prefer monthly update too. We need to capture rapidly changing Wikipedias. Why monthly update became impractical while technology advances?? — HenryLi (Talk) 16:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

 * It would be nice to see stats at least once every 3 or 6 months. Is this something that I can do for instance? Or does an admin have to do it?--Rafaelgarcia 00:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

New update
Hi folks, sorry for the delay. The process is automated... sort of. I copy data from List of Wikipedias to my hard disk and run a process script, which generates all the pretty tables. But this means that I have to remember to actually update the page, it doesn't work by itself. Alfio 22:03, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

March 16 or 15
According to statistics here Urdu wikipedia reached at the number 5000 on March 15. But if we check at Urdu wikipedia the number was achieved on March 16. This discrepency should be removed. I helped Urdu wiki to reach 5000 on March 16 by starting almost 35 new articles on that day. I can remember well that date as that was my birthday too.

Khalid Mahmood —Preceding comment was added at 20:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Update
Nobody update this page? I'm waiting for the april statistic, and now we're almost in may. --193.204.41.211 (talk) 13:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Need for Automation
Is there no way that this page can be automatically updated? Unfortunately I don't know programming whatsoever, but there should be a way to automate this page, shouldn't there? Right now it appears that we are 3-4 months behind.Erudy (talk) 16:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

 * I updated the page. Sorry for the delay. In principle the script could be automated using wget etc., but I never got around implementing it and I would need access to the toolserver. If anyone wants to work on it email me and I'll send the script. Alfio (talk) 20:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Need update
This page need update to 11/09, please someone what the update, forgive my English --Pablo323 (talk) 06:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Need update
This page need update Rippitippi (talk) 13:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Need update
Why it is not update?--Kaiyr (talk) 23:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * For the most up to date rankings, see Meta:List of Wikipedias. HenkvD (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello, this page either needs an update or to be decommissioned or better redirected. Can this be done? FranCapoArg (talk) 15:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia talk:Multilingual statistics


text:
Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika (Ikiyaga ca Tanganyika) is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. The lake is shared among four countries—Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC), Burundi, and Zambia—with Tanzania (46%) and the DRC (40%) possessing the majority of the lake. It drains into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean.

Geography
Lake Tanganyika is situated within the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, and is confined by the mountainous walls of the valley. It is the largest rift lake in Africa and the second-largest lake by volume in the world. It is the deepest lake in Africa and holds the greatest volume of fresh water on the continent, accounting for 16% of the world's available fresh water. It extends for 676 km in a general north–south direction and averages 50 km in width. The lake covers 32900 km2, with a shoreline of 1828 km, a mean depth of 570 m and a maximum depth of 1470 m (in the northern basin). It holds an estimated 18750 km3.

The catchment area of the lake is 231000 km2. Two main rivers flow into the lake, as well as numerous smaller rivers and streams (whose lengths are limited by the steep mountains around the lake). The one major outflow is the Lukuga River, which empties into the Congo River drainage. Precipitation and evaporation play a greater role than the rivers. At least 90% of the water influx is from rain falling on the lake's surface and at least 90% of the water loss is from direct evaporation.

The major river flowing into the lake is the Ruzizi River, formed about 10,000 years ago, which enters the north of the lake from Lake Kivu. The Malagarasi River, which is Tanzania's second largest river, enters the east side of Lake Tanganyika. The Malagarasi is older than Lake Tanganyika, and before the lake was formed, it probably was a headwater of the Lualaba River, the main Congo River headstream.

The lake has a complex history of changing flow patterns, due to its high altitude, great depth, slow rate of refill, and mountainous location in a turbulently volcanic area that has undergone climate changes. Apparently, it has rarely in the past had an outflow to the sea. It has been described as "practically endorheic" for this reason. The lake's connection to the sea is dependent on a high water level allowing water to overflow out of the lake through the Lukuga River into the Congo. When not overflowing, the lake's exit into the Lukuga River typically is blocked by sand bars and masses of weed, and instead this river depends on its own tributaries, especially the Niemba River, to maintain a flow.

The lake may also have at times had different inflows and outflows; inward flows from a higher Lake Rukwa, access to Lake Malawi and an exit route to the Nile have all been proposed to have existed at some point in the lake's history.

Lake Tanganyika is an ancient lake, one of only twenty more than a million years old. Its three basins, which in periods with much lower water levels were separate lakes, are of different ages. The central began to form 9–12 million years ago (Mya), the northern 7–8 Mya and the southern 2–4 Mya.

Water characteristics
The lake's water is alkaline with a pH around 9 at depths of 0-100 m. Below this, it is around 8.7, gradually decreasing to 8.3–8.5 in the deepest parts of Tanganyika. A similar pattern can be seen in the electric conductivity, ranging from about 670 μS/cm in the upper part to 690 μS/cm in the deepest.

Surface temperatures generally range from about 24 C in the southern part of the lake in early August to 28 - 29 C in the late rainy season in March—April. At depths greater than 400 m, the temperature is very stable at 23.1 - 23.4 C. The water has gradually warmed since the 19th century and this has accelerated with global warming since the 1950s.

The lake is stratified and seasonal mixing generally does not extend beyond depths of 150 m. The mixing mainly occurs as upwellings in the south and is wind-driven, but to a lesser extent, up- and downwellings also occur elsewhere in the lake. As a consequence of the stratification, the deep sections contain "fossil water". This also means it has no oxygen (it is anoxic) in the deeper parts, essentially limiting fish and other aerobic organisms to the upper part. Some geographical variations are seen in this limit, but it is typically at depths around 100 m in the northern part of the lake and 240-250 m in the south. The oxygen-devoid deepest sections contain high levels of toxic hydrogen sulphide and are essentially lifeless, except for bacteria.

Reptiles
Lake Tanganyika and its associated wetlands are home to Nile crocodiles (including famous giant Gustave), Zambian hinged terrapins, serrated hinged terrapins, and pan hinged terrapins (last species not in the lake itself, but in adjacent lagoons). Storm's water cobra, a threatened subspecies of banded water cobra that feeds mainly on fish, is only found in Lake Tanganyika, where it prefers rocky shores.

Cichlid fish
The lake holds at least 250 species of cichlid fish and undescribed species remain. Almost all (98%) of the Tanganyika cichlids are endemic to the lake and it is thus an important biological resource for the study of speciation in evolution. Some of the endemics do occur slightly into the upper Lukuga River, Lake Tanganyika's outflow, but further spread into the Congo River basin is prevented by physics (Lukuga has fast-flowing sections with many rapids and waterfalls) and chemistry (Tanganyika's water is alkaline, while the Congo's generally is acidic). The cichlids of the African Great Lakes, including Tanganyika, represent the most diverse extent of adaptive radiation in vertebrates.

Although Tanganyika has far fewer cichlid species than Lakes Malawi and Victoria which both have experienced relatively recent explosive species radiations (resulting in many closely related species), its cichlids are the most morphologically and genetically diverse. This is linked to the high age of Tanganyika, as it is far older than the other lakes. Tanganyika has the largest number of endemic cichlid genera of all African lakes. All Tanganyika cichlids are in the subfamily Pseudocrenilabrinae. Of the 10 tribes in this subfamily, half are largely or entirely restricted to the lake (Cyprichromini, Ectodini, Lamprologini, Limnochromini and Tropheini) and another three have species in the lake (Haplochromini, Tilapiini and Tylochromini). Others have proposed splitting the Tanganyika cichlids into as many as 12–16 tribes (in addition to previous mentioned, Bathybatini, Benthochromini, Boulengerochromini, Cyphotilapiini, Eretmodini, Greenwoodochromini, Perissodini and Trematocarini).

Most Tanganyika cichlids live along the shoreline down to a depth of 100 m, but some deep-water species regularly descend to 200 m. Trematocara species have exceptionally been found at more than 300 m, which is deeper than any other cichlid in the world. Some of the deep-water cichlids (e.g., Bathybates, Gnathochromis, Hemibates and Xenochromis) have been caught in places virtually devoid of oxygen, but how they are able to survive there is unclear. Tanganyika cichlids are generally benthic (found at or near the bottom) and/or coastal. No Tanganyika cichlids are truly pelagic and offshore, except for some of the piscivorous Bathybates. Two of these, B. fasciatus and B. leo, mainly feed on Tanganyika sardines. Tanganyika cichlids differ extensively in ecology and include species that are herbivores, detritivores, planktivores, insectivores, molluscivores, scavengers, scale-eaters and piscivores. These dietary specializations, however, have been shown to be flexible. That is, many species of Tanganyikan cichlid with specialized diets showed opportunistic, episodic exploitation of Stolothrissa tanganicae and Limnothrissa miodon when prey concentrations were unusually high. Their breeding behavior fall into two main groups, the substrate spawners (often in caves or rock crevices) and the mouthbrooders. Among the endemic species are two of the world's smallest cichlids, Neolamprologus multifasciatus and N. similis (both shell dwellers) at up to 4-5 cm, and one of the largest, the giant cichlid (Boulengerochromis microlepis) at up to 90 cm.

Many cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, such as species from the genera Altolamprologus, Cyprichromis, Eretmodus, Julidochromis, Lamprologus, Neolamprologus, Tropheus and Xenotilapia, are popular aquarium fish due to their bright colors and patterns, and interesting behaviors. Recreating a Lake Tanganyika biotope to host those cichlids in a habitat similar to their natural environment is also popular in the aquarium hobby.

Other fish
Lake Tanganyika is home to more than 80 species of non-cichlid fish and about 60% of these are endemic.

The open waters of the pelagic zone are dominated by four non-cichlid species: Two species of "Tanganyika sardine" (Limnothrissa miodon and Stolothrissa tanganicae) form the largest biomass of fish in this zone, and they are important prey for the forktail lates (Lates microlepis) and sleek lates (L. stappersii). Two additional lates are found in the lake, the Tanganyika lates (L. angustifrons) and bigeye lates (L. mariae), but both these are primarily benthic hunters, although they also may move into open waters. The four lates, all endemic to Tanganyika, have been overfished and larger individuals are rare today.

Among the more unusual fish in the lake are the endemic, facultatively brood parasitic "cuckoo catfish", including at least Synodontis grandiops and S. multipunctatus. A number of others are very similar (e.g., S. lucipinnis and S. petricola) and have often been confused; it is unclear if they have a similar behavior. The facultative brood parasites often lay their eggs synchronously with mouthbroding cichlids. The cichlid pick up the eggs in their mouth as if they were their own. Once the catfish eggs hatch the young eat the cichlid eggs. Six catfish genera are entirely restricted to the lake basin: Bathybagrus, Dinotopterus, Lophiobagrus, Phyllonemus, Pseudotanganikallabes and Tanganikallabes. Although not endemic on a genus level, six species of Chrysichthys catfish are only found in the Tanganyika basin where they live both in shallow and relatively deep waters; in the latter habitat they are the primary predators and scavengers. A unique evolutionary radiation in the lake is the 15 species of Mastacembelus spiny eels, all but one endemic to its basin. Although other African Great Lakes have Synodontis catfish, endemic catfish genera and Mastacembelus spiny eels, the relatively high diversity is unique to Tanganyika, which likely is related to its old age.

Among the non-endemic fish, some are widespread African species but several are only shared with the Malagarasi and Congo River basins, such as the Congo bichir (Polypterus congicus), goliath tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath), Citharinus citharus, six-banded distichodus (Distichodus sexfasciatus) and mbu puffer (Tetraodon mbu).

Molluscs and crustaceans
A total of 83 freshwater snail species (65 endemic) and 11 bivalve species (8 endemic) are known from the lake. Among the endemic bivalves are three monotypic genera: Grandidieria burtoni, Pseudospatha tanganyicensis and Brazzaea anceyi. Many of the snails are unusual for species living in freshwater in having noticeably thickened shells and/or distinct sculpture, features more commonly seen in marine snails. They are referred to as thalassoids, which can be translated to "marine-like". All the Tanganyika thalassoids, which are part of Prosobranchia, are endemic to the lake. Initially they were believed to be related to similar marine snails, but they are now known to be unrelated. Their appearance is now believed to be the result of the highly diverse habitats in Lake Tanganyika and evolutionary pressure from snail-eating fish and, in particular, Platythelphusa crabs. A total of 17 freshwater snail genera are endemic to the lake, such as Hirthia, Lavigeria, Paramelania, Reymondia, Spekia, Stanleya, Tanganyicia and Tiphobia. There are about 30 species of non-thalassoid snails in the lake, but only five of these are endemic, including Ferrissia tanganyicensis and Neothauma tanganyicense. The latter is the largest Tanganyika snail and its shell is often used by small shell-dwelling cichlids.

Crustaceans are also highly diverse in Tanganyika with more than 200 species, of which more than half are endemic. They include 10 species of freshwater crabs (9 Platythelphusa and Potamonautes platynotus; all endemic), at least 11 species of small atyid shrimp (Atyella, Caridella and Limnocaridina), an endemic palaemonid shrimp (Macrobrachium moorei), about 100 ostracods, including many endemics, and several copepods. Among these, Limnocaridina iridinae lives inside the mantle cavity of the unionid mussel Pleiodon spekei, making it one of only two known commensal species of freshwater shrimp (the other is the sponge-living Caridina spongicola from Lake Towuti, Indonesia).

Among Rift Valley lakes, Lake Tanganyika far surpasses all others in terms of crustacean and freshwater snail richness (both in total number of species and number of endemics). For example, the only other Rift Valley lake with endemic freshwater crabs are Lake Kivu and Lake Victoria with two species each.

Other invertebrates
The diversity of other invertebrate groups in Lake Tanganyika is often not well-known, but there are at least 20 described species of leeches (12 endemics), 9 sponges (7 endemic), 6 bryozoa (2 endemic), 11 flatworms (7 endemic), 20 nematodes (7 endemic), 28 annelids (17 endemic) and the small hydrozoan jellyfish Limnocnida tanganyicae.

Fishing
Lake Tanganyika supports a major fishery, which, depending on source, provides 25–40% or c. 60% of the animal protein in the diet of the people living in the region.

Lake Tanganyika fish can be found exported throughout East Africa. Major commercial fishing began in the mid-1950s and has, together with global warming, had a heavy impact on the fish populations, causing significant declines. In 2016, it was estimated that the total catch was up to 200,000 tonnes.

History
It is thought that early Homo sapiens were making an impact on the region during the Stone Age. The time period of the Middle Stone Age to Late Stone Age is described as an age of advanced hunter-gatherers.

There are many methods in which the native people of the area were fishing. Most of them included using a lantern as a lure for fish that are attracted to light. There were three basic forms. One called Lusenga which is a wide net used by one person from a canoe. The second one is using a lift net. This was done by dropping a net deep below the boat using two parallel canoes and then simultaneously pulling it up. The third is called Chiromila which consisted of three canoes. One canoe was stationary with a lantern while another canoe holds one end of the net and the other circles the stationary one to meet up with the net.

The first known Westerners to find the lake were the British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke, in 1858. They located it while searching for the source of the Nile River. Speke continued and found the actual source, Lake Victoria. Later David Livingstone passed by the lake. He noted the name "Liemba" for its southern part, a word probably from the Fipa language. Tanganyika means "stars" in the Luvale language.

The lake was the scene of Battle for Lake Tanganyika during World War I. With the aid of the Graf Goetzen, the Germans had complete control of the lake in the early stages of the war. The ship was used both to ferry cargo and personnel across the lake, and as a base from which to launch surprise attacks on Allied troops. It therefore became essential for the Allied forces to gain control of the lake themselves. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson the British Royal Navy achieved the monumental task of bringing two armed motor boats HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou from England to the lake by rail, road and river to Albertville (since renamed Kalemie in 1971) on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. The two boats waited until December 1915, and mounted a surprise attack on the Germans, with the capture of the gunboat Kingani. Another German vessel, the Hedwig, was sunk in February 1916, leaving the Götzen as the only German vessel remaining to control the lake. In order to avoid his prize ship falling into Allied hands, Zimmer scuttled the vessel on July 26, 1916. The vessel was later raised in 1924 and renamed MV Liemba.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lake Tanganyika


text:
1970 in television

The year 1970 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of notable television-related events in that year.

Events

 * January 1 – WXTV becomes a full time Spanish-language station based in Paterson, New Jersey, which it remains into the 21st century, in this case, becomes an affiliate of SIN, the network's first affiliate east of the Mississippi River.
 * January 3 – Jon Pertwee makes his first appearance as the Third Doctor in the Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space. It also marks the first time that the series is broadcast in colour.
 * January 19 – CBS in the United States launches Operation 100, a plan to beat NBC's ratings in the last 100 days of the season, using the slogan "The man can't bust our network."
 * February 7 – The Hollywood Palace variety series airs its 192nd and final hour-long episode on ABC, with Bing Crosby in his 31st appearance as guest host.
 * March 7 – The "eclipse of the century" is covered by all three American networks.
 * March 16 – The FCC's "Miami channel 10 case" comes to a definite end as the station becomes WPLG.
 * March 26 – The first privately owned television station in Thailand, Channel 3, opens in Bangkok.
 * April 1 – President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, banning cigarette television advertisements in the United States, starting on January 1, 1971.
 * April 6 - The Action News format made its debut on WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV, an ABC O&O)
 * May 31 – WAPI-TV 13 in Birmingham, Alabama, ends nine years of dual affiliation with NBC and CBS, becoming an exclusive affiliate of NBC, and WBMG 42 in Birmingham, WCFT-33 in Tuscaloosa and WHMA-40 in Anniston affiliate exclusively with CBS. Previously, Channels 33, 40 and 42 aired programming from NBC and CBS that was not aired on Channel 13.
 * July 31 – Chet Huntley anchors his final newscast with David Brinkley and retires, bringing down the curtain on a 14-year career at NBC News in the United States and, thus, as chief anchor of The Huntley–Brinkley Report. The next Monday, August 3, the program is renamed NBC Nightly News, the title it retains for at least 40 years.
 * August 2 – NBC expands full-service newscasts to seven nights a week with NBC Sunday News; it replaces The Frank McGee Report.
 * September 7 – Independent Television of Vietnam, as predecessor of Vietnam Television, begins broadcasts Hanoi, Vietnam.
 * October 5 – The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States begins broadcasting and National Educational Television is shut down.
 * December 25 – Pluto's Christmas Tree is broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom, the first complete Mickey Mouse cartoon to be shown on television in colour, despite the colour strike causing Christmas programmes that year to air in Black & White.
 * In a cliffhanger on the American soap opera Search for Tomorrow, businessman Sam Reynolds is believed to be dead after perishing in Africa. One of the first "exotic" deaths for a soap opera character, it is in tune with actor Robert Mandan's wish to leave the show.
 * "Country" comedian and Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl makes her first appearance on Hee Haw.
 * Lloyd Robertson replaces Warren Davis as anchor of CBC Television's The National.

Programs/programmes

 * 60 Minutes (1968–present)
 * American Bandstand (1952–1989)
 * Another World (1964–1999)
 * As the World Turns (1956–2010)
 * Bewitched (1964–1972)
 * Blue Peter (UK) (1958–present)
 * Bonanza (1959–1973)
 * Bozo the Clown (1949–present)
 * Bright Promise (1969–1972)
 * Candid Camera (1948–present)
 * Captain Kangaroo (1955–1984)
 * Clangers (UK) (1969–1972)
 * Come Dancing (UK) (1949–1995)
 * Coronation Street (1960–present)
 * Crossroads (UK) (1964–1988, 2001–2003)
 * Dad's Army (UK) (1968–1977)
 * Dark Shadows (1966–1971)
 * Days of Our Lives (1965–present)
 * Dixon of Dock Green (UK) (1955–1976)
 * Doctor Who (UK) (1963–1989, 1996, 2005–present)
 * Face the Nation (1954–present)
 * Family Affair (1966–1971)
 * Four Corners (Australia) (1961–present)
 * General Hospital (1963–present)
 * Grandstand (UK) (1958–2007)
 * Green Acres (1965–1971)
 * Gunsmoke (1955–1975)
 * Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951–present)
 * Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980)
 * Hee Haw (1969–1993)
 * Here's Lucy (1968–1974)
 * Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971)
 * Ironside (1967–1975)
 * It's Academic (1961–present)
 * Jeopardy! (1964–1975, 1984–present)
 * Julia (1968–1971)
 * Kimba the White Lion (1966–1967), re-runs
 * Laugh-In (1968–1973)
 * Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1967–1973)
 * Love of Life (1951–1980)
 * Love, American Style (1969–1974)
 * Magpie (UK) (1968–1980)
 * Mannix (1967–1975)
 * Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–1976)
 * Mayberry R.F.D. (1968–1971)
 * Meet the Press (1947–present)
 * Mission: Impossible (1966–1973)
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK) (1969–1974)
 * My Three Sons (1960–1972)
 * One Life to Live (1968–2012)
 * Opportunity Knocks (UK) (1956–1978)
 * Panorama (UK) (1953–present)
 * Play School (1966–present)
 * Room 222 (1969–1974)
 * Search for Tomorrow (1951–1986)
 * Sesame Street (1969–present)
 * Soul Train (1971-2006)
 * That Girl (1966–1971)
 * The Andy Williams Show (1962-1971)
 * The Benny Hill Show (UK) (1969–1989)
 * The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971)
 * The Brady Bunch (1969–1974)
 * The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1978)
 * The Dean Martin Show (1965–1974)
 * The Doctors (1963–1982)
 * The Doris Day Show (1968–1973)
 * The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971)
 * The Edge of Night (1956–1984)
 * The Goodies (UK) (1970-1982)
 * The Good Old Days (UK) (1953–1983)
 * The Guiding Light (1952–2009)
 * The Johnny Cash Show (1969–1971)
 * The Late Late Show (Ireland) (1962–present)
 * The Lawrence Welk Show (1955–1982)
 * The Mike Douglas Show (1961–1981)
 * The Mod Squad (1968–1973)
 * The Money Programme (UK) (1966–present)
 * The Newlywed Game (1966–1974)
 * The Secret Storm (1954–1974)
 * The Sky at Night (UK) (1957–present)
 * The Today Show (1952–present)
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–1979)
 * This Is Your Life (UK) (1955–2003)
 * Tom and Jerry (1965–1972, 1975–1977, 1980–1982)
 * Top of the Pops (UK) (1964–2006)
 * Truth or Consequences (1950–1988)
 * What the Papers Say (UK) (1956–present)
 * Where the Heart Is (1969–1973)
 * World of Sport (1965–1985)
 * Z-Cars (UK) (1962–1978)

Debuts

 * January 5 – Soap opera All My Children on ABC (–2011)
 * January 6 – Kate on ITV (–1972)
 * January 30 – The Tim Conway Show on CBS (ending June 19)
 * February 17 – McCloud pilot on NBC (–1977); The series becomes a regular show the following fall as part of Four in One
 * March 30 – Soap opera Somerset on NBC (–1976), while fellow soaps A World Apart (1970–1971) and The Best of Everything (1970) debut on ABC (It marks the last time multiple soaps premiere on the same day in the US)
 * September 12 – Josie and the Pussycats, on CBS Saturday morning (–1974)
 * September 16 – UFO on ITV (–1971)
 * September 17 – The Flip Wilson Show (–1974) and Nancy (–1971) on NBC
 * September 18 - Headmaster (-1971) on CBS
 * September 19 – Arnie (–1972) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (–1977) both on CBS
 * September 20 – The Tim Conway Comedy Hour on CBS (ending December 13)
 * September 21 – NFL Monday Night Football on ABC (it moved to ESPN in 2006)
 * September 24 – The Odd Couple (–1975) and Barefoot in the Park (–1971) both on ABC
 * September 25
 * The Partridge Family on ABC (–1974)
 * Adventures in Rainbow Country on CBC (–1971)
 * Doomwatch on BBC1 (–1972)
 * Party Game (–1980)
 * Play for Today supersedes The Wednesday Play on BBC1; the anthology drama series lasts until 1984
 * November – Mr Benn on BBC in syndication
 * November 8 - The Goodies on BBC2
 * December – I racconti di padre Brown on RAI (–February 1971)

title: 1970 in television


text:
1971 in television

The year 1971 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable TV-related events.

Events

 * January 1 – The final cigarette advertisements are televised in the United States, with the final one occurring during that evening's broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC.
 * January 3 – BBC Open University broadcasts begin in the UK.
 * January 12 – CBS airs the first episode of All in the Family, with a disclaimer at the beginning of the program warning viewers about potentially offensive content. Within a year, it became television's most popular program, and started a trend toward realism in situation comedies.
 * January 27 – Valerie Barlow is electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer, and then perishes in a house fire on Coronation Street.
 * February 23 – The Selling of the Pentagon documentary airs on CBS.
 * March 2 – On an All in the Family episode, Archie and Edith get brand new next-door neighbors—Michael and Gloria's best friend, Lionel Jefferson (played by Mike Evans) and his parents. The episode marks Isabel Sanford's first appearance as Louise Jefferson; George Jefferson would not be depicted on-screen until 1973 (by Sherman Hemsley).
 * March 11 – ABC cancels The Lawrence Welk Show after sixteen years on the network. The show, however, returns to the airwaves in syndication in September, where it would run for another eleven years.
 * March 16 - CBS releases its schedule for the fall 1971 season, adding new shows with urban/suburban appeal and cancelling what Pat Buttram would later call "every show that had a tree in it," among them Buttram's Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Mayberry R.F.D.  Two other victims of CBS' "rural purge," Lassie and Hee Haw, would continue in first-run syndication that fall.
 * April 3 – RTÉ launches Color television in Ireland with the Eurovision Song Contest 1971, held in Dublin.
 * April 4 - PBS airs Peter Paul and Mary's "The Song is Love" movie documentary, directed by the most unlikely of people, horror movie's Tobe Hooper.
 * June 7 – The UK children's magazine show Blue Peter buries a time capsule in the grounds of BBC Television Centre; it would be unearthed on the first episode of the year 2000.
 * August 1 - The much-acclaimed 6-hour BBC miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII, starring Keith Michell as Henry, makes its U.S. premiere; CBS would air it over 6 consecutive Sundays through September 5.
 * September 13 – U.S. network prime time programming shrinks as the original Prime Time Access Rule takes effect. NBC, unable to take advantage, immediately feels the pinch and fails to win any of the 1971–72 season's first thirteen weeks.
 * October 2 – Soul Train debuts in syndication.
 * October 21 – One-off drama Edna, the Inebriate Woman, starring Patricia Hayes, is shown by BBC One in its Play for Today slot.
 * November – Top-rated As the World Turns loses the #1 slot in the daytime Nielsens for the first time since 1959.
 * Michael Zaslow first appears as Roger Thorpe on The Guiding Light.

Programs

 * 60 Minutes (1968–present)
 * A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965–present, aired annually)
 * All in the Family (1971–1979)
 * ABC's Wide World of Sports (1961–1998)
 * All My Children (1970–2011)
 * American Bandstand (1952–1989)
 * Another World (1964–1999)
 * As the World Turns (1956–2010)
 * Bewitched (1964–1972)
 * Blue Peter (UK) (1958–present)
 * Bonanza (1959–1973)
 * Bozo the Clown (1949–present)
 * Bright Promise (1969–1972)
 * Candid Camera (1948–2014)
 * Captain Kangaroo (1955–1984)
 * Charlie Brown's All-Stars (1966–1972, aired annually)
 * Clangers (UK) (1969–1972)
 * Come Dancing (UK) (1949–1995)
 * Coronation Street, UK (1960–present)
 * Crossroads (UK) (1964–1988, 2001–2003)
 * Dad's Army (UK) (1968–1977)
 * Days of Our Lives (1965–present)
 * Death Valley Days (1952–1975)
 * Dixon of Dock Green (UK) (1955–1976)
 * Doctor Who, UK (1963–1989, 1996, 2005–present)
 * Doomwatch (UK) (1970–1972)
 * Face the Nation (1954–present)
 * Famous Jury Trials (1971–1972)
 * Four Corners (Australia) (1961–present)
 * General Hospital (1963–present)
 * Grandstand (UK) (1958–2007)
 * Gunsmoke (1955–1975)
 * Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951–present)
 * Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980)
 * Hee Haw (1969–1993)
 * Here's Lucy (1968–1974)
 * Hockey Night in Canada (1952–present)
 * Ironside (1967–1975)
 * It's Academic (1961–present)
 * It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966–present, aired annually)
 * Jeopardy! (1964–1975, 1984–present)
 * Kimba the White Lion (1966–1967), re-runs
 * Laugh-In (1968–1973)
 * Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1967–1973)
 * Love of Life (1951–1980)
 * Love, American Style (1969–1974)
 * Magpie (UK) (1968–1980)
 * Mannix (1967–1975)
 * Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–1976)
 * Mary Tyler Moore (1970–1977)
 * McCloud (1970–1977)
 * Meet the Press (1947–present)
 * The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder (UK) (1969-1971)
 * Mission: Impossible (1966–1973)
 * Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968–2001)
 * Monday Night Football (1970–present)
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK) (1969–1974)
 * Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (1963–1988, 2002–present)
 * My Three Sons (1960–1972)
 * One Life to Live (1968–2012)
 * Opportunity Knocks, UK (1956–1978)
 * Panorama, UK (1953–present)
 * Password (1962–1967, 1971–1975, 1979–1982, 1984–1989, 2008–)
 * Play for Today (UK) (1970–1984)
 * Play School (1966–present)
 * Professional Bowlers Tour (1962–1997)
 * Room 222 (1969–1974)
 * Search for Tomorrow (1951–1986)
 * Sesame Street (1969–present)
 * The Benny Hill Show (1969–1989)
 * The Brady Bunch (1969–1974)
 * The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1978)
 * The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1969-1972)
 * The Dean Martin Show (1965–1974)
 * The Dick Cavett Show (1969–1974)
 * The Doctors (1963–1982)
 * The Doris Day Show (1968–1973)
 * The Edge of Night (1956–1984)
 * The Flip Wilson Show (1970–1974)
 * The Good Old Days, UK (1953–1983)
 * The Guiding Light (1952–2009)
 * The Late Late Show, Ireland (1962–present)
 * The Lawrence Welk Show (1955–1982)
 * The Mike Douglas Show (1961–1981)
 * The Mod Squad (1968–1973)
 * The Money Programme (UK) (1966–present)
 * The Newlywed Game (1966–1974)
 * The Odd Couple (1970–1975)
 * The Partridge Family (1970–1974)
 * The Secret Storm (1954–1974)
 * The Sky at Night (UK) (1957–present)
 * The Today Show (1952–present)
 * The Tonight Show (1954–present; 1962–92 as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–79 under this title)
 * The World Tonight, Philippines (1962–present)
 * This Is Your Life, UK (1955–2003)
 * Tom and Jerry (1965–1972, 1975–1977, 1980–1982)
 * Top of the Pops (UK) (1964–2006)
 * Truth or Consequences (1950–1988)
 * What the Papers Say (UK) (1956–2008)
 * What's My Line? (1968–1975, syndicated version)
 * Where the Heart Is (1969–1973)
 * World of Sport (UK) (1965–1985)
 * Z-Cars, UK (1962–1978)

Debuts
T
 * January 10 – Masterpiece Theatre on PBS (1971–)
 * January 12 – All in the Family on CBS (1971–79)
 * April 2 – The Return of Ultraman on TBS in Japan (1971–72)
 * April 3 – Kamen Rider on MBS TV and NET in Japan (1971–73)
 * April 10 – The Two Ronnies on BBC1 in the UK (1971–87)
 * June 19 - Parkinson on BBC1 (1971–82, 1987–88, 1998–2004, then on ITV from 2004 to 2007)
 * July 4 - The Cat in the Hat (TV special) on CBS (1971)
 * August 1 – The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour on CBS (1971–74)
 * September 11 –
 * Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1971–72) and Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch (1971–74) both on CBS Saturday Morning.
 * The Jackson 5ive (1971–73), The Funky Phantom (1971–72), and Lidsville (1971–73), all on ABC Saturday Morning.
 * September 15 - Columbo (1971–78) as part of a rotation of detective shows on the NBC Mystery Movie
 * September 17 –
 * McMillan & Wife on NBC (1971–77)
 * O'Hara, U.S. Treasury on CBS (1971–72)
 * September 18 – The New Dick Van Dyke Show on CBS (1971–74)
 * September 19 – The Jimmy Stewart Show on NBC (1971–72)
 * September 21 – The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 (1971–87)
 * October 2 – Soul Train, the African-American equivalent to American Bandstand (1971–2006)
 * October 10 – Upstairs, Downstairs in the UK on ITV (1971–75, 2010–)
 * October 25 – The Electric Company, a skit-based children's program aimed at teaching reading skills, on PBS (1971–77)

Television debuts

 * Keith Carradine – Bonanza
 * Robert Carradine – Bonanza
 * Chevy Chase – The Great American Dream Machine
 * Max Gail – Ironside
 * Anna Magnani – The Automobile
 * Andrea Martin – The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour
 * Sam Neill – The City of No
 * Katey Sagal – The Failing of Raymond
 * Mario Van Peebles – Crosscurrent
 * James Woods – All the Way Home
 * George Wyner – The Odd Couple

title: 1971 in television


text:
1972 in television

The year 1972 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable television-related events.

Events

 * January 3 – Show Boat is aired for the first time on network television, on NBC
 * January 21 – The first convention of Star Trek fans is held in New York City's Statler-Hilton hotel
 * Mid-February – John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-host an entire week on The Mike Douglas Show
 * February 19 – Sammy Davis Jr. makes a guest appearance on All in the Family
 * March 18 – After losing a 15-year court battle over the legality of its business relationship with The Herald-Traveler, CBS' Boston, Massachusetts affiliate WHDH-TV Channel 5 signs off the air. At 3 a.m. on March 19, WCVB takes over the Channel 5 frequency, simultaneously switching affiliations to the ABC network following CBS' loss of interest in the channel during the long legal wrangle.
 * March 27 - The Amateur's Guide to Love begins on the air, making it CBS' first attempt to make a game show since 1968 when To Tell the Truth go off the air. It eventually failed.
 * April 4 – After a three-year courtship, Emily Nugent married Ernest Bishop on Coronation Street.
 * May – The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson permanently relocates its production from New York City to the NBC studios in Burbank, California. (The Tonight Show would remain there until relocating back to New York in February 2014)
 * July 21 – Victoria Wyndham makes her first appearance as vixen (and later, good girl) Rachel Davis on the soap opera Another World.
 * August 1 – Three years after it was first filmed, the Israel Broadcasting Authority finally agrees to screen Barricades, a controversial documentary film that offered a sympathetic portrayal of Palestinians expelled from their homes in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
 * August 26 – Effective with this issue, TV Guide discontinues the practice of using a "C" to indicate color programs, and instead starts using a "BW" for monochrome, saving a lot of printer's ink in the process. At the time about half of the TV households in the U.S. had color sets.
 * September 1 - A day for CBS' daytime lineup could be described as anything but uneventful. CBS airs reruns of popular primetime shows, The Lucy Show, The Beverly Hillbillies and My Three Sons for the final time, as reruns dominating CBS' daytime lineup (it was a tradition since 1959). The following Monday, all three shows moved to syndication.
 * September 4 – Another eventful day for CBS' daytime schedule. The Price Is Right premieres on CBS. To date, it is the longest running game show on American television. The Joker's Wild and Gambit also debuted, bringing game shows back to CBS' schedule in a more successful attempt than The Amateur's Guide to Love, which was cancelled on June 23, and it replaced the morning reruns dominated by CBS' daytime lineup (it was a staple since 1959).
 * September 9 – The Lawrence Welk Show opens its 18th season on location in Hawaii.
 * October 27 – The 5000th episode of Captain Kangaroo airs.
 * November 8 – Home Box Office (HBO) is launched, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
 * November 21 – In the second part of a two-part story which began the previous week, Beatrice Arthur's character, Maude Findlay, on the television sitcom Maude, decides to go through with an abortion, in a move that shocked CBS executives and Maude advertisers. (Rue McClanahan made her first appearance as Vivian Cavender in this two-parter; she would become a regular cast member the following season.)
 * December 31
 * ORTF 3ème Chaîne launches in France for the first time.
 * The first installment of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve airs on NBC, beginning a yearly tradition of Dick Clark-hosted New Year's specials.

Programs

 * 60 Minutes (1968–)
 * About Safety (1972–1973)
 * All in the Family (1971–1979)
 * All My Children (1970–2011)
 * American Bandstand (1952–1989)
 * Another World (1964–1999)
 * As the World Turns (1956–2010)
 * Blue Peter (UK) (1958–)
 * Bonanza (1959–1973)
 * Bozo the Clown (1949–)
 * Candid Camera (1948–)
 * Captain Kangaroo (1955–1984)
 * Columbo (1971–1978)
 * Come Dancing (UK) (1949–95)
 * Coronation Street (UK) (1960–)
 * Crossroads (UK) (1964–1988, 2001–2003)
 * Dad's Army (UK) (1968–1977)
 * Days of Our Lives (1965–)
 * Devilman (Japan) (1972–1973)
 * Dixon of Dock Green (UK) (1955–1976)
 * Doctor Who (UK) (1963–1989, 1996, 2005–)
 * Emmerdale Farm (1972–)
 * Face the Nation (1954–)
 * Four Corners (Australia) (1961–)
 * General Hospital (1963–)
 * Grandstand (UK) (1958–2007)
 * Gunsmoke (1955–1975)
 * Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951–)
 * Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980)
 * Hee Haw (1969–1993)
 * Here's Lucy (1968–1974)
 * Ironside (1967–1975)
 * It's Academic (1961–)
 * Jeopardy! (1964–1975, 1984–)
 * Kashi no Ki Mokku (Adventures of Pinocchio) (Japan) (1972)
 * Kimba the White Lion (1966–1967), re-runs
 * Laugh-In (1968–1973)
 * Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963)
 * Lost In Space (1965–1968)
 * Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1967–73)
 * Love of Life (1951–1980)
 * Love, American Style (1969–1974)
 * Magpie (UK)(1968–1980)
 * Mannix (1967–1975)
 * Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–1976)
 * Mary Tyler Moore (1970–77)
 * Masterpiece Theatre (1971–)
 * McCloud (1970–1977)
 * McMillan & Wife (1971–1977)
 * Meet the Press (1947–)
 * Mission: Impossible (1966–1973)
 * Monday Night Football (1970–)
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK) (1969–1974)
 * Old Grey Whistle Test (UK) (1971–1987)
 * One Life to Live (1968–2012)
 * Opportunity Knocks (UK) (1956–78)
 * Panorama (UK) (1953–)
 * Play for Today (UK) (1970–1984)
 * Play School (1966–)
 * Rainbow (1972–1992)
 * Room 222 (1969–1974)
 * Search for Tomorrow (1951–1986)
 * Sesame Street (1969–)
 * Soul Train (1971–2006)
 * The Benny Hill Show (1969–1989)
 * The Brady Bunch (1969–1974)
 * The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1978)
 * The Dean Martin Show (1965–1974)
 * The Doctors (1963–1982)
 * The Doris Day Show (1968–1973)
 * The Edge of Night (1956–1984)
 * The Flip Wilson Show (1970–1974)
 * The Good Old Days (UK) (1953–1983)
 * The Guiding Light (1952–2009)
 * The Late Late Show (Ireland) (1962–)
 * The Lawrence Welk Show (1955–1982)
 * The Mike Douglas Show (1961–1981)
 * The Mod Squad (1968–1973)
 * The Money Programme (UK) (1966–)
 * The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971–1974)
 * The Newlywed Game (1966–1974)
 * The Odd Couple (1970–75)
 * The Partridge Family (1970–1974)
 * The Price Is Right (1972–)
 * The Secret Storm (1954–1974)
 * The Sky at Night (UK) (1957–)
 * The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1971–1974)
 * The Today Show (1952–)
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–1979)
 * This Is Your Life (UK) (1955–2003)
 * Tom and Jerry (1965–1972, 1975–1977, 1980–1982)
 * Top of the Pops (UK) (1964–2006)
 * Truth or Consequences (1950–1988)
 * What the Papers Say (UK) (1956–)
 * Where the Heart Is (1969–1973)
 * World of Sport (UK) (1965–1985)
 * Z-Cars (UK) (1962–1978)

Debuts

 * January 4 – Des chiffres et des lettres on ORTF 2ème Chaîne in France (1972–)
 * January 13 – Me and the Chimp on CBS (1 season)
 * January 14 – Sanford and Son on NBC (1972–1977)
 * January 15 – Emergency! on NBC (1972–1977)
 * March 13 – Number 96 on Australia's 0–10 Network (1972–1977)
 * April 4 – John Craven's Newsround (now titled Newsround) on BBC1
 * April 7 – Ultraman Ace on TBS in Japan (1972–73)
 * June 21 – The Super (1972–1972) on ABC.
 * June 22 – The first Tattslotto draw on HSV-7 Melbourne
 * July 5 – Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town on Thames Television (first and only series)
 * July 8 – Android Kikaider on TV Asahi (formerly NET) (1972–1973)
 * August 16 – About Safety on PBS
 * September 4 – The New Price Is Right (1972–present), The Joker's Wild (1972–1975, 1977–1986), and Gambit (1972–1976) all on CBS. Any Number, Bonus Game, and Double Prices were the three games played on the first episode of The New Price Is Right, which loses the "New" by mid-1973, and is currently television's longest running game show in history, having started its 43rd season in September 2014.
 * September 8 – Are You Being Served? (1972–1985) on BBC1
 * September 9
 * Runaround on NBC (1972–1973)
 * Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972–1984) and The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972–1973) both on CBS
 * September 11 – Mastermind (1972–97, 2002–) on BBC1; The Rookies (1972–1976) on ABC
 * September 12
 * Maude, a spinoff of All in the Family on CBS (1972–1978)
 * Temperatures Rising on ABC (1972–1974)
 * September 13
 * The Julie Andrews Hour on ABC; although only on for one season, it won seven Emmy Awards including Best Musical Variety Series.
 * The Paul Lynde Show (1972-1973) on ABC.
 * September 14 – The Waltons on CBS (1972–1981)
 * September 15 – Ghost Story on NBC (1972–1973)
 * September 16
 * The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) and Bridget Loves Bernie (1972–1973) on CBS
 * The Streets of San Francisco on ABC (1972–1977)
 * September 17
 * M*A*S*H on CBS (1972–1983)
 * The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972–74) on ITV
 * October 2 – The Stanley Baxter Picture Show (1972–75) on ITV
 * October 3 – 4 Country Reporter on then-CBS affiliate KDFW Channel 4 (now a Fox O&O station); in 1986, the show moves into first-run syndication under the new name Texas Country Reporter, eventually airing nationally on the RFD-TV satellite/cable channel (, the show will mark 35 years on television)
 * October 14 – Kung Fu on ABC (1972–75)
 * October 16 – Emmerdale Farm starts transmissions in the daytime on ITV (1972–)
 * October 19 – Prisoner-of-war drama
 * Colditz on BBC1
 * The Beachcombers (1972–1989) and This Is the Law (1972–1976) both on CBC
 * Canada AM on CTV (1972–)
 * November 4 – Great Performances on PBS (1972–)

Television debuts

 * Margaret Avery – Something Evil
 * Timothy Bottoms – Look Homeward, Angel
 * Ned Beatty – Footsteps
 * John Candy – Cucumber
 * Joanna Cassidy – Mission: Impossible
 * Candy Clark – Room 222
 * Ronny Cox – Look Homeward, Angel
 * Bill Duke – ABC Afterschool Specials
 * Ian Holm – BBC Play of the Month
 * Timothy Hutton – The Magical World of Disney
 * Jackie Earle Haley – The Carol Burnett Show
 * Bob Hoskins – The Main Chance
 * Jonathan Pryce – Doomwatch
 * Randy Quaid – Night Gallery
 * Vincent Schiavelli – The Corner Bar
 * John Travolta – Emergency!
 * Rita Wilson – The Brady Bunch

title: 1972 in television


text:
1973 in television

The year 1973 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in that year.

Events

 * January 4 – Last of the Summer Wine, starts as a 30-minute pilot on BBC1's Comedy Playhouse show. The first series starts on November 12; the 295th and last episode is broadcast on 29 August 2010.
 * January 12 – Family Affair airs for the final time, in daytime reruns on CBS in the United States. Reruns will later eventually move to syndication.
 * January 13 – The Lawrence Welk Show airs its Salute to Mexico episode where Anacani makes her debut with the Champagne Music Makers. That episode also marks the final time Sandi Griffiths and Sally Flynn appear together as the act of Sandi & Sally
 * January 14 – Elvis Presley's Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite television special is seen around the world by over 1 billion viewers, setting a record as the most-watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history. It is broadcast live to Asia and Oceania, with a delay to Europe, and in April to the United States and Brazil. In the UK, it wasn't shown until March 5, 1978 on BBC1. However, it is not shown in Eastern Bloc countries because of communist censorship, with the sole exception of Der schwarze Kanal on Deutscher Fernsehfunk in East Germany.
 * January 15 – For a brief attempt to stop rerunning primetime shows from 1973 to 1975, Vin Scully's eponymous talk show debuts on the air on CBS.
 * March 8 – The TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders airs on CBS. This serves as the pilot for the iconic crime drama series Kojak, which returns as a weekly series in October.
 * March 13 – The TV movie Hawkins: Death and the Maiden airs on CBS. This serves as the pilot for the James Stewart legal drama and murder mystery series Hawkins, which returns as a weekly series in October.
 * March 21 – Sitcom Are You Being Served? begins its first regular series on BBC1 in the U.K. (pilot aired September 8, 1972).
 * March 23 – The longest running daytime game show to date — NBC's Concentration — airs its 3,796th and final show, after a run of fourteen years and seven months. The record will be eclipsed in 1987 by The Price Is Right; Concentration ranks fourth in continual longevity among all daytime/syndicated game shows. Also on the same day, CBS aired the final episodes of the soaps that started in the late 1960s, Where the Heart Is and Love is a Many Splendored Thing on the daytime lineup.
 * March 25 – The pilot episode of Open All Hours airs as part of Ronnie Barker's series Seven of One on BBC1 in the U.K.
 * March 26 – NBC debuts Baffle, one of the first projects Lin Bolen greenlit for the daytime schedule. Also on the same day, CBS debuts The $10,000 Pyramid and The Young and the Restless on the lineup, and The Price is Right moved to afternoons (it will eventually come back to the mornings permanently in August 1975). As for The Young and the Restless, it will kick out Jeopardy! in the ratings, moving it from the noon to the mornings by January 1974.
 * April 1 – "Prisoner and Escort", the pilot episode of Porridge, airs as part of Seven of One.
 * April 16 – James Paul McCartney airs on ABC (and on ITV in the U.K. on May 10).
 * May 10 – ABC concludes its first run at broadcasting the National Basketball Association with the New York Knicks' Finals clinching victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5. With CBS taking over as the NBA's network television partner, this would mark the last time that ABC would broadcast an NBA Finals for 30 years.
 * May 17 – U.S. daytime television is interrupted by the Watergate hearings, which would continue until August 7. Each network airs coverage in rotation every third day (ABC is first, then CBS and NBC).
 * July 2 – U.S. game show Match Game debuts its 1970s version; it soon becomes the #1-rated daytime television program for 1973, 1974, and 1975, as well as #1 game show from 1973 to 1977.
 * August 6 – James Beck, who stars as Private Walker in the popular U.K. sitcom Dad's Army, dies of a burst pancreas at the age of just 44. Although the series continues until 1977, the part of Walker is not recast and the show carries on without him.
 * August 11 – Programme One airs the first part of the Soviet television miniseries Seventeen Moments of Spring, which would run until the 24th. With an audience of between fifty and eighty million viewers per episode, it becomes the most successful television show of its time in the Soviet Union.
 * August 17 – CBS presents an adaptation of David Rabe's play Sticks and Bones...but only to about half of its affiliates.
 * September 15 – Betty White makes her first appearance as Sue Ann Nivens in The Mary Tyler Moore Show's fourth season opener, "The Lars Affair".
 * September 20 – The Battle of the Sexes: Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in a televised tennis match at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The global television audience in 36 countries is estimated at 90 million.
 * October 8
 * Pat Phoenix leaves the role of Elsie Tanner on Coronation Street after thirteen years, when she felt that specific length of time was enough to play one character continuously.
 * Telefe Mar del Plata is taken over by the Peronist government of Argentina.
 * October 20 – George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) makes his first appearance on All in the Family, at his brother Henry's goodbye party, though he has lived next door to Archie Bunker for the past two years.
 * November 4 – Filipino television network Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation officially signs on the air using Channel 2 frequency (owned by ABS-CBN Corporation), which was shut down by President Ferdinand Marcos more than one year ago.
 * November 12 – Last of the Summer Wine starts as a series on BBC1 (the pilot had aired on January 4). The 295th and last episode is broadcast on 29 August 2010.
 * November 20 – A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving airs on CBS for the first time. It will go onto win an Emmy Award the following year.
 * November 23 – Julie on Sesame Street, starring Julie Andrews, airs on ABC.
 * November – Color television is launched in New Zealand. (It will go full-time in November 1975).
 * December 12 – Kojak's trademark lollipop makes its debut in the episode "Hot Sunday".
 * December 19 – After reading a news item that said the federal government had fallen behind in getting bids to supply toilet tissue, Johnny Carson inadvertently triggers an unprecedented three-week panic when he announces, on The Tonight Show, that there is an acute shortage of toilet paper in the U.S.

Programs/programmes

 * 60 Minutes (1968–)
 * About Safety (1972–1973)
 * All in the Family (1971–79)
 * All My Children (1970–2011)
 * American Bandstand (1952–89)
 * Another World (1964–99)
 * Are You Being Served? (UK) (1972–85)
 * As the World Turns (1956–2010)
 * Blue Peter (UK) (1958–)
 * Bonanza (1959–73)
 * Bozo the Clown (1949–)
 * Candid Camera (1948–)
 * Captain Kangaroo (1955–84)
 * Colditz (UK) (1972–74)
 * Columbo (1971–78)
 * Come Dancing (UK) (1949–95)
 * Concentration (1958–78)
 * Coronation Street (UK) (1960–)
 * Crossroads (UK) (1964–88, 2001–03)
 * Dad's Army (UK) (1968–77)
 * Days of Our Lives (1965–)
 * Dixon of Dock Green (UK) (1955–76)
 * Doctor Who (UK) (1963–89, 1996, 2005–)
 * Emergency! (1972–77)
 * Emmerdale Farm (UK) (1972–)
 * Face the Nation (1954–)
 * Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972–84)
 * Four Corners (Australia) (1961–)
 * General Hospital (1963–)
 * Grandstand (UK) (1958–2007)
 * Gunsmoke (1955–75)
 * Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951–)
 * Hawaii Five-O (1968–80)
 * Hee Haw (1969–93)
 * Here's Lucy (1968–74)
 * I've Got a Secret (1972–73)
 * Ironside (1967–75)
 * It's Academic (1961–)
 * Jeopardy! (1964–75, 1984–)
 * John Craven's Newsround (UK) (1972–)
 * Kimba the White Lion (1966–67), re-runs
 * Kung Fu (1972–75)
 * Love of Life (1951–80)
 * Love, American Style (1969–74)
 * Magpie (UK) (1968–80)
 * Mannix (1967–75)
 * Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–76)
 * Mary Tyler Moore (1970–77)
 * M*A*S*H (1972–83)
 * Masterpiece Theatre (1971–)
 * Maude (1972–78)
 * McCloud (1970–77)
 * McMillan & Wife (1971–77)
 * Meet the Press (1947–)
 * Monday Night Football (1970–)
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74)
 * Old Grey Whistle Test (UK) (1971–87)
 * One Life to Live (1968–2012)
 * Opportunity Knocks (UK) (1956–78)
 * Panorama (UK) (1953–)
 * Play for Today (UK) (1970–84)
 * Play School (1966–)
 * Police Story (1973–78)
 * Rainbow (1972–92)
 * Room 222 (1969–74)
 * Sanford and Son (1972–77)
 * Search for Tomorrow (1951–86)
 * Sesame Street (1969–)
 * Soul Train (1971–2006)
 * The Benny Hill Show (UK) (1969–89)
 * The Bob Newhart Show (1972–78)
 * The Brady Bunch (1969–74)
 * The Carol Burnett Show (1967–78)
 * The Dean Martin Show (1965–19)
 * The Doctors (1963–82)
 * The Edge of Night (1956–84)
 * The Flip Wilson Show (1970–74)
 * The Good Old Days (UK) (1953–83)
 * The Guiding Light (1952–2009)
 * The Late Late Show (Ireland) (1962–)
 * The Lawrence Welk Show (1955–82)
 * The Mike Douglas Show (1961–81)
 * The Money Programme (UK) (1966–)
 * The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971–74)
 * The Newlywed Game (1966–74)
 * The Odd Couple (1970–75)
 * The Partridge Family (1970–74)
 * The Price Is Right (1972–)
 * The Secret Storm (1954–74)
 * The Sky at Night (UK) (1957–)
 * The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1971–74)
 * The Today Show (1952–)
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–92)
 * The Waltons (1972–81)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–79)
 * This Is Your Life (UK) (1955–2003)
 * To Tell the Truth (1956–68; 1969–78)
 * Top of the Pops (UK) (1964–2006)
 * Truth or Consequences (1950–88)
 * What the Papers Say (UK) (1956–)
 * What's My Line (1950–75)
 * World of Sport (UK) (1965–85)
 * Z-Cars (UK) (1962–78)

Debuts

 * January 4 – Last of the Summer Wine pilot episode, first series begins on November 12 (1973–2010)
 * January 6 – Schoolhouse Rock! on ABC (1973–09)
 * January 28 – Barnaby Jones on CBS (1973–80)
 * March 20 – Police Story on NBC (1973–78)
 * March 26
 * The Young and the Restless on CBS (1973–)
 * The $10,000 Pyramid on CBS with Dick Clark as host
 * April 6 – Ultraman Taro on TBS in Japan (1973–74)
 * July 2 – CBS revives Match Game with more ribald questions (1962–69, 1973–84, 1990–91, 1998–99)
 * July 17
 * The Wizard of Odds, first United States game show hosted by Alex Trebek, premieres on NBC
 * The New Treasure Hunt (syndicated 1973–76)
 * September 8
 * An animated revival of Star Trek premieres on NBC (1973–74)
 * Super Friends (1973–74) premieres on ABC
 * September 10 – Lotsa Luck on NBC (1973–74)
 * September 14 – Adam's Rib on ABC (1973)
 * September 21 - Needles and Pins on NBC (1973)
 * September 22 – The Starlost (1973–74)
 * October 2 – Hawkins on CBS (1973–74)
 * October 3 – Love Story on NBC (1973–74)
 * October 15 – The Tomorrow Show on NBC (1973–82)
 * October 24 – Kojak on CBS (1973–78, 2005)
 * Superstars on BBC1 in the UK (1973–85, 2003–05)
 * Greatest Sports Legends (syndicated 1973–93)

Television debuts

 * F. Murray Abraham – Nightside
 * Graham Beckel – Class of '63
 * Reb Brown – The Girl Most Likely To...
 * Colleen Camp – Marcus Welby, M.D.
 * Stockard Channing – Love, American Style
 * Tovah Feldshuh – Scream, Pretty Peggy
 * Charles Fleischer – Hawkins
 * Mark Harmon – Ozzie's Girls
 * Helen Hunt – Pioneer Woman
 * Madeline Kahn – Adam's Rib
 * Frank McRae – Snatched
 * Colm Meaney – Thursday Play Date
 * Mary Kay Place – All in the Family
 * David Proval – Kojak
 * Kathleen Quinlan – Emergency!
 * Josef Sommer – The Doctors
 * Bruce Spence – Certain Women
 * Don Stark – Outrage

title: 1973 in television