At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Chicago, Ampex demonstrates the first commercially-available videotape deck, the Ampex VRX-1000 Quad VTR, using two-inch-wide open-reel videotape, in spools with a 14-inch diameter, to record and play back up to an hour of television programming. Over the next four days, Ampex receives orders from broadcasters totaling over two million dollars. CBS will give the VRX-1000 its first national on-air use in November, tape-delaying a newscast to its stations on the west coast, allowing the first broadcast of a single program at the same hour in different time zones. NBC will also have the VRX-1000 in use at the beginning of 1957. A newer model capable of recording and playing back programming in full color will become available in 1958. Though it does not record at the same resolution as film, the relative ease of use of videotape will see it replace kinescope film in most TV operations.
The 42nd episode of the syndicated science fiction Science Fiction Theatre airs on stations across the U.S. Hosted by Truman Bradley, the episode stars Bruce Bennett and David Alpert, and is directed by William Castle.
The 70th episode of The Adventures Of Superman airs in syndication, starring George Reeves, Noel Neill, and Jack Larson.
The 38th episode of the syndicated series Highway Patrol, starring Broderick Crawford, is broadcast in the United States. This story, titled Prospector, is an early TV script written by future Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry, still on active duty with the Los Angeles Police Department, is also the show’s “technical advisor” on police procedure. Due to Roddenberry’s current police employment, the episode is credited to his pseudonym, Robert Wesley. 
The first American TV network to go out of business transmits its final broadcast, a live boxing match from New York. The DuMont Television Network has simply run out of money, despite countless innovations that will be adopted by its competitors in years to come: the first made-for-TV movie, the first sitcom, the first soap opera, the first interstate coax cable link between stations (connecting the east coast to St. Louis), and the first to sell ad time within a single show to multiple advertisers, rather than letting a single advertiser sponsor an entire show (usually controlling the content as well). DuMont was also home to the first American science fiction TV series, Captain Video and his Video Rangers, which thrilled young viewers between 1949 and 1955. The DuMont Network goes off the air after operating for only ten years. The DuMont name continues to be used by its core of owned-and-operated stations in major cities, though that business unit will eventually rename itself Metropolitan Media, and later Metromedia. (Ironically, the Metromedia stations will eventually be purchased by the nascent Fox Broadcasting Company in the 1980s, becoming the core of another upstart TV network.)