POST Posts: The National Television Registry, 2023

I have a modest proposal to celebrate the television medium historically on the federal level.

Do you know how there's an annual list of films inducted into the National Film Registry (2022's list is quite eclectic)? The group responsible for that is the National Film Preservation Board (the NFPB). Formed in 1988, the Library of Congress-based agency has selected films that are deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Similarly, a National Recording Preservation Board (the NRPB) at the LoC does the same for sound recordings such as speeches and music in National Recording Registry.
It is important to preserve our media history, and the NFPB and NRPB do that on the federal level.

That said, there should be a similar federal-level board that preserves culturally, historically or aesthetically significant American-made television programs. 

Not television news archives since there are many, many, many organizations dedicated to that, most notably the Freedom Forum, which operated the Newseum. However, some news magazines and documentaries should be acknowledged and honored.

 
And while there are many private industry-supported endeavors to preserve the television medium (just like the film and recording mediums), but nothing on a federal level at all for television. I think it was because as a society, we looked at television as disposable medium only meant to entertain us at that moment while never expecting to be a part of our culture. As a result, there are so many shows and interstitials are increasingly becoming lost media or commercially unavailable.

So, in this hypothetical National Television Registry, what would be worthy of such entry?
It’s simple.

Every year, I would induct four culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant from these decades:

• The 1940s/1950s
• The 1960s
• The 1970s
• The 1980s
• The 1990s

I wouldn’t put in anything that premiered after 2000, and for the moment, I’m leaving off anything made in the 21st century until 2050 at the earliest.

I’d also make a caveat to include a special category for children’s programming and animation with every annual list. 

All of these shows deserve to be recognized, celebrated, and historically preserved by the National Television Registry.

The inaugural list of the National Television Registry would include five productions in each of the initial decades as well as the children’s programming and news/documentary categories. The reason I want five productions in the first year is I want to include an eclectic, diverse list of shows and films, not just the usual shows commonly celebrated in similar lists. 

Subsequent years will have three shows and films from the 1950s to 1990s, two shows in the children’s education and animated programs categories, and one from the news/documentary category.

That said, if there are some shows that would be considered ineligible mostly because, at least initially, I want to focus on scripted media. Shows that wouldn’t be eligible include:

• Talk shows
• Sports events (Super Bowls, World Series, Olympics, NBA Finals, NCAA Championships, et. al.)
• Reality shows 
• News broadcasts (nightly news, live/prerecorded news interview shows)

Although game shows aren't largely scripted, these shows would be eligible for consideration under special circumstances and grouped every second year and not included with scripted decades.

If it were up to me, this would be my first-year entrants (and why I’d pick them):

The 1940s

• Kraft Television Theatre (1947-1958)
• The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971)
• Texaco Star Theater (1948-1956)
• The Ford Television Theater (1948-1957)
• Studio One (1948-1958)

The 1950s

• The Jack Benny Program (1950-1965)
• Your Show of Shows (1950-1954)
• I Love Lucy (1951-1957)
• The Honeymooners (1955-1956)
• The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

The 1960s

• The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966)
• The Flintstones (1960-1966)
• The Fugitive (1963-1967)
• Star Trek ((1966-1969)
• The Carol Burnett Show (1967-1978)

The 1970s

• All in the Family (1971-1979)
• Roots (1977)
• Saturday Night Live (1975-Present)
• Taxi (1978-1982)
• ABC Weekend Special (1977-1997)

The 1980s

• Hill Street Blues (1981-1987)
• Fraggle Rock (1983-1987)
• The Golden Girls (1985-1992)
• It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (1986-1990)
• A Different World (1987-1993)

The 1990s

• The Simpsons (1990-Present*)
• Seinfeld (1990-1998*)
• Batman: The Animated Series(1992 - 1995)
• Oz (1997-2003)
• The Sopranos (1999-2007)

Children’s Programming

• Captain Kangaroo (1955-1984)
• Mister Roger’s Neighborhood (1968-2001)
• Sesame Street (1969-Present)
• Schoolhouse Rock (1973-1985)
• Reading Rainbow (1983-2006)

Animated Programming

• The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959-1964)
• The Bugs Bunny Show (1960-2000)
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969-1970)

News Magazines/Documentaries

• See It Now (1951-1958)
• Wild Kingdom (1963-1988)
• 60 Minutes(1968-Present)
• Eyes on the Prize (1987-1990)

(*while The Simpsons Christmas Special and The Seinfeld Chronicles are considered by the producers as the first episodes of The Simpsons and Seinfeld, respectively, I’m counting the premiere episodes of their weekly series [“Bart the Genius” and “The Stake Out”] as the official start of those series)

What would be your initial first class in the National Television Registry?