During the evening's broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC, cigarette advertisements were broadcast in the United States for the final time. This is due to the ban on cigarette advertisements passed into law a year earlier.
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.
February 7
ABC affiliate WBKO (formerly WLTV) in Bowling Green, Kentucky activates its new transmission facility. This comes after operating with limited power in the aftermath of the WLTV transmitter sabotage by dynamite in September 1969.
CBS airs the acclaimed 6-hour BBC miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII, starring Keith Michell, in six separate installments, airing on six consecutive Sundays.
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 in terms of the Nielsen ratings.
November
A 12-year streak in the ratings for the CBS soap opera As the World Turns' ends as that program lost the #1 slot for the first time since 1959.
December 23
NBC airs the 1964 Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, for the final time (in this case, KUAM-TV in Guam), as CBS picked up the rights for that special beginning the following year. The special would return to NBC in 2024.
