2009 - the Year in Television

Television in the year 2009 brought many changes, most of which centered around people going to the back of their televisions for the first time in years to try and figure out how to hook up a new set top box in preparation for the HDTV switch over later in the year. Many exciting things happened in television in 2009, so let's take a look at what happened.

JANUARY

New Years Day, a day for new beginnings, hangovers, sports, sports, and more sports. While most people watched football, Major League Baseball thought it would be a good idea to throw a curve ball and launched the MLB Network, which caused thousands of confused baseball fans to stare at their televisions for the next few months until baseball season started.

Millions of people watched their televisions as the Justice of the Supreme Court flubbed his lines while swearing Barak Obama as our next president, which showed why most Supreme Court justices don't often speak in public.

Not to be outdone, Illinois Governer Rod Blagojevich appeared on television as much as possible before he was impeached late in the month. Spongebob Squarepants celebrated the show's 10th anniversary, but spent most of the time trying to keep Blagojevich off the show.

FEBRUARY

The beginning of the month kicked off the annual showing of the best commercials on television, with a football game called "The Superbowl" shown in between.

After years of preparation for a smooth transition to digital television which was scheduled to occur this month, the federal government realized that congress still hadn't figured out how to hook up their television set top boxes, and delayed the final transition until June.

"Late Night with Conan O'Brien" aired its last episode on NBC, since no other host with that exact name could be found.

MARCH

The show to "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" started, and was a great success because most people agreed that "Jimmy" sounded less like a made up name than "Conan".

The Academy Award show, which started at the end of February, finally ended during the middle of the month, making it one of the shortest Academy Award shows in history.

The Nielsen ratings "sweeps week" which usually happened in February was moved to this month instead. The entertainment industry in Hollywood eagerly awaited the results. In the rest of the country, people continued to tune their Nielsen black box equipped televisions to what they think will make them look more intelligent, while they surfed the internet for pictures of cats with funny captions.

APRIL

CBS launched the crime drama "NCIS: Los Angeles" after the success of the show "NCIS". This follows in the footsteps of another show, "CSI", which had the spinoffs "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY". The Midwest eagerly awaited, "NCIS: EIEIO", a farmland crime drama, but was disappointed.

The medical drama "ER" aired its final episode, leaving millions of people wondering if there will ever be another medical drama to replace it, other than the 4,000 other medical dramas already on the air.

MAY

Kris Allen won Season 8 of "American Idol", defeating Adam Lambert in a very controversial season finale. Many people were left wondering how something like eight seasons of "American Idol" could be allowed to happen.

Jay Leno left "The Tonight Show", to replaced by Conan O'Brien, who finally figured out how to get all the way out to Los Angeles.

JUNE

All remaining analog television stations finally started broadcasting digital signals only, leaving many people that had grainy television reception with no television reception whatsoever. Consumers were completely outraged that they heard nothing of the digital switchover, which all stations have been warnings about for the last 20 years.

Michael Jackson passed away at the end of June, turning nearly every television channel into "The Michael Jackson Channel".

JULY

The "Sci Fi Channel" renamed itself "Syfy", because its genius marketing department decided that the term "Sci Fi" was just too confusing for people to understand. The newly renamed channel airs the first episode of "Warehouse 13", a show set in the building where the government was likely to have hidden the Ark that Indiana Jones found, the Loch Ness Monster, and the entire marketing department of "Syfy".

AUGUST

Paula Abdul, having just realized that "American Idol" was over since there was nobody left in the auditorium where she'd been waiting for the last few months, announces on Twitter that she's not going to be a judge for Season 9. Both of her followers on Twitter get the word out to the rest of the world, which sighs in relief.

The swearing in ceremony for Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor was televised, and everyone made sure that the Chief Justice has the oath scribbled on his hands just in case things got confusing again.

SEPTEMBER

Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift's speech during the "2009 MTV Video Music Awards" to everyone's disbelief - MTV actually still broadcasts music videos.

Jay Leno returned to television with the premiere of "The Jay Leno Show", which was COMPLETELY different than the old "Tonight Show with Jay Leno". The new aired one hour earlier.

The soap opera "Guiding Light", which first started as a radio show in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, finally ended. Many viewers ended up being disappointed after waiting for many years for the "opera" part of the show to materialize.

OCTOBER

David Letterman told his "Late Show" audience that he had been having affairs with female members of his staff, most of whom said that he wouldn't make their "Top Ten" lists.

In an effort to get viewers to watch more than 10 minutes at a time, "The Weather Channel" started to air weather related movies like "The Perfect Storm" and "Misery". Some people, not realizing these movies aren't documentaries, hold up in their homes during blizzards for fear of being held captive by Kathy Bates.

NOVEMBER

Oprah Winfrey announced that in 2011, she would end her talk show "The Oprah Winfrey Show" which panicked millions of viewers who wondered they would know which books to read.

CNN's Lou Dobbs announced that he was going to leave the network immediately, but would probably hang around in the lobby from time to time just in case people wanted to talk to him.

DECEMBER

Former host of "Good Morning America", Charles Gibson, retired as anchor of "ABC World News". He was replaced by former host of "Good Morning America", Diane Sawyer. George Stephanopolous will be the new co-host of "Good Morning America", and has high hopes this will eventually lead to a job on "ABC World News".

"American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, in a fit of despair of not being able to make fun of Paula Abdul anymore, announced he would step down as judge next May.

That was the year in television. Many exciting new shows start up again early next year, and when we figure out how to get this HDTV thing working, we'll be watching too.