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Will our kids’ kids love Raymond too? If television program preservation efforts are successful, yes, everyone will love him!
At the four major television networks, there are an estimated 100,000 television programs. When you total the holding of 100,000 television programs by the four major television networks, and the holdings of major archives, as many as 200,000 hours of television are being preserved for posterity. That is quite a collection of re-runs!
Of course, safeguarding “Friends,” “Saved by the Bell,” and “Law and Order” is not as easy as you might think.
Preservation attempts have been, and continue to be, impacted by the lack of knowledge when it comes to the life of videotape - which ranges from five to a little over a hundred years. This is not long, but filmmakers and historians are continuously working together to improve archival methods.
Another issue facing film preservation is the rapid development of video technology. Equipment necessary to record and play back tapes, from as recently as the 1970’s, is virtually obsolete. Think about it. Do you even have a VCR anymore? As a result, new efforts are also being made to preserve equipment.
So, will future generations say “Cheers?”
The American Film Institute's National Center for Film and Video Preservation prepared comprehensive national guidelines for "The Selection of Television Programs for Retention and Preservation," which have been distributed and encouraged since 1988.
The AFI finalized agreements with Capital Cities/ABC Inc., the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the Museum of Television and Radio in 1990. The negotiation facilitated the donation of the history of ABC's entertainment programming, which includes a robust 20,000 programs from 1950 to 1980, to AFI’s national collection.
The AFI and video preservationists feel that centralizing the nation’s history of television programs will assist in safeguarding this portion of entertainment history. With any luck, fans everywhere will be watching “The Price is Right” a hundred years from now!
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