There are a handful of television archives and museums in the United States that together contain hundreds of thousands of hours of television programs. These include the Library of Congress, the Paley Center for Media, and The UCLA Film & Television Archive. Some are open to the general public while others are restricted primarily to scholars and researchers. Most have made it possible to search their collections online, although online catalogs may be incomplete. Many academic institutions hold smaller, specific collections, often pertaining to an individual or a specific television program.
What follows are descriptions for some of the larger television archives and museums.
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting
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A collaboration between the Library of Congress and PBS station WGBH, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting launched in 2009. An inventory project carried out between 2010 and 2012 resulted in more than 2.5 million inventory records. Over 100,000 hours of content have been digitized and roughly 60,000 assets are accessible online.
The Library of Congress
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According to the collections overview provided for television, the Library of Congress began collecting television programs in 1949 and today holds about 80,000 programs but that number may be substantially higher. Some of the more noteworthy collections held by the Library include: the NBC Television Collection, the NET Collection, and the Hubert Chain Collection. Additional information on the Library’s television holdings can be found here.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications
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Founded in 1987, The Museum of Broadcast Communications has a collection of more than 85,000 hours of television and radio broadcasts dating back to the mid-1940s. Currently, only about 27,000 records are searchable online.
The Paley Center for Media
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Broadcaster William S. Paley founded The Paley Center for Media in 1975 as the Museum of Broadcasting. In 1991 it became Museum of Television & Radio and in 2007 became The Paley Center for Media. There used to be two locations, one in New York City and the other in Los Angeles, but the Los Angeles location closed in 2020. The Paley Center maintains a list of television programs it’s searching for.
Peabody Awards Collection
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The George Foster Peabody Awards honor excellence in radio and television broadcasting, with the awards bestowed for programs produced during the previous year. The first radio awards were distributed in 1941 and the first television awards in 1949. Housed at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Peabody Awards Collection contains approximately 90,000 radio and television programs.
UCLA Film & Television Archive
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The John H. Mitchell Television Collection at UCLA Film & Television Archive contains more than 170,000 television programs, including the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences/UCLA Collection of Historic Television.
Vanderbilt Television News Archive
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The Vanderbilt Television News Archive started recording the nightly network news programs for ABC, CBS and NBC in August 1968, adding select cable news programs in later decades. Digital copies of entire broadcasts or compilations of segments from various broadcasts are available for loan for a fee. A monthly index to the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news program as well as special network programming can be found here.
Published November 6th, 2010
Last updated June 29th, 2021
FAQs
We've gathered TV programmes from various sources, but mainly from broadcasters themselves. We've even found and restored TV footage thought lost forever. We are designated as the National Television Archive and most of our TV is recorded 'off-air'.
Is Lost one of the best shows ever? ›
It is one of the most original and thought provoking shows ever and even though a lot have tried, there has never been another show like it. It has some of the best storytelling ever put on tv. You'll have to have patience as you watch becomes answers to come as quick as you'd like but they come.
When was the first TV sold? ›
The Baird "Televisor" (sold in 1930–1933 in the UK) is considered the first mass-produced television, selling about a thousand units. In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated the first TV system that employed a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan.
What is the archive TV app? ›
TheArchive channel is dedicated to aficionados and lovers of story, craft and silver screen fun, representing rare, retro and 4K restored films and classic tv.
How do I look up archives? ›
Visit the website of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at http://www.archives.gov/. NARA oversees the preservation of United States federal government materials.
What are archives on Android? ›
You can hide photos from your Photos view and move them to archive. This can help you organize your photos and hide any photo that you don't want to find often. Any photos that you archive: Will still be in any albums that they were added to, search results, and folders on your device.
Does Internet Archive have everything? ›
Do you collect all the sites on the Web? No, the Archive collects web pages that are publicly available. We do not archive pages that require a password to access, pages that are only accessible when a person types into and sends a form, or pages on secure servers.
What happens to archive files? ›
Once files are archived, they are typically not used in your daily operations. They're like books in a library's rare book section—safely stored until someone needs to refer to them. Archived files are often compressed to save space and may require decompression software to view or use them in the future.
What is the most watched television series ever? ›
1. Game of Thrones. Nine noble families fight for control over the lands of Westeros, while an ancient enemy returns after being dormant for millennia.
What is the oldest TV called? ›
Philo Taylor Farnsworth, 21, (pictured at left) developed what he called the “image dissector,” the first working electronic camera tube, in San Francisco in 1927.
In his laboratory on 2 October 1925, Baird successfully transmitted the first television picture with a greyscale image: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy nicknamed "Stooky Bill" in a 32-line vertically scanned image, at five pictures per second.
What was the first TV show in the United States? ›
Philo Farnsworth patents his "dissector tube" in 1927. It turns out to be an important component in the development of all-electronic television. Television's first drama,The Queen's Messenger, is broadcast from Schenectady, New York station WGY on September 11, 1928.
Where can I find archive footage? ›
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a vast digital library that offers a wide range of public domain video footage , including historical films, newsreels, documentaries, and more. It's an excellent resource for finding archival footage from different time periods.
How to find old TV interviews? ›
Your best bet is often to use a news clipping service like Metro Monitor. These services can help you locate and obtain any TV news clip you need quickly and easily, so you don't have to spend hours trying to track it down yourself.
How to watch old TV broadcasts? ›
Fast services such as Tubi, Pluto, FreeVee, The Roku Channel, and Crackle have half a century of classic TV comedies and dramas at their fingertips. Tubi, which has 250 free live channels, reports it hit 74 million monthly active users last month. While Pluto TV has seen its viewership jump by 70%.
