WASHINGTON-The Library of Congress may ask the Federal Communications Commission for a piece of the auction-revenue pie to promote a program to preserve TV videos.
The Library of Congress in a September report proposed using spectrum auction revenue to fund video preservation. The report is a follow-on to a previous Library of Congress document that helped secure funding to preserve and archive movies, an effort that garnered the backing of Hollywood. However, “funding of television and video preservation has been, in a word, inadequate,” the report found. “Foundations have rejected video preservation grant applications because of a perceived inadequacy of videotape as a preservation medium.”
The Library of Congress soon will house nearly 300,000 TV items and will become the largest broadcast archivist in the country. Storage facilities need to be both revamped and extended, and old tapes need to be cleaned up and transferred to current VHS videotape formats.
A list of early television programs that have been lost forever due to negligence of one kind or another include: the first commercial television broadcast in 1939, an interview with Sirhan Sirhan and President Truman’s inaugural address in 1947.
Admitting that the venture will require a commitment from public and private researchers to develop a way in which to save and then warehouse and disseminate old videotape and film from the late 1940s to the present, the library found that the cost of such an undertaking will require extensive fund raising. Besides the usual donations solicited from individuals and corporations for restoration, the report committee also suggested that either a sales tax dedicated or a spectrum auction dedicated to the project could be more lucrative sources of dollars than just donations.
“The FCC has already auctioned spectrum to the telecommunications industry … raising almost $20 billion for the national treasury. A bill in the 104th Congress (H.R. 2979) proposed use of spectrum sales to establish a trust fund for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” the report said. “The point is for the archival community not (to) become engaged in the debate on spectrum policy-though some archives may wish to do so-but only to advocate the principle that broadcasters or telecommunications companies which receive such lucrative privileges should be obligated in some way to return a service to the public archives that provide preservation of and access to television materials. This service should take the form of a percentage of auction sales of channels or, at a minimum, a voluntary donation. Conversely, the government could be asked to consider making available a percentage of income from auction sales to the proposed nonprofit organization.”
None of the suggestions contained in the report have been presented formally to any agency or to Congress, and they remain in discussion at this point. However, there are plans to move them forward at a later date.
