Description
Founded in 1997, with its first interviews recorded in 1996, The Television Academy Foundation’s The Interviews: An Oral History
of Television consists of over 850 videotaped oral history interviews with the legends of television, including Milton Berle,
Carol Burnett, Walter Cronkite, Norman Lear, Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, and many others. Interviewees hail from professions
across the television industry, from actors and writers to executives, editors, publicists, composers, and more. Major topics
discussed in interviews include Advice to Aspiring Professionals, TV’s Golden Age, Censorship, and Technological Innovation,
as well as important events in American and television history, such as the Hollywood Blacklist, the Quiz Show Scandals, 9/11,
and the Kennedy Assassination. The Interviews conducts up to twenty-five new interviews each year. The vast majority of the
collection is available to the public through the Interviews' website (full versions) and YouTube (shorter clips).
Background
The Television Academy Foundation was founded in 1959 as the charitable arm of the Television Academy with the goal of shaping
the art of creating television by engaging and educating the next generation of television professionals. Today, the Foundation
pursues this goal through scholarships, internships, career development programs, outreach to university faculty, and the
in-depth oral history of television housed in The Interviews.
Extent
900 interviews (557 standard definition, 343 high definition)
approximately 3,700 hours of video footage
88 TB of data
Restrictions
The Interviews' footage is available to all film, television, broadband and documentary producers, and has been digitized
for easy access and delivery. Licensing fees apply, but vary depending on the usage rights and territory required. Transcripts
for research purposes only are available for a fee.
Availability
The vast majority of the Interviews' holdings have been digitized and are freely available to the public for viewing through
the Interviews' website (full) and on YouTube (shorter clips).