Steve Allen describes the birth of “Tonight.” Isabel Sanford talks about her path from theater to “The Jeffersons.” Writer-producer James L. Brooks pulls back the curtain on the creation of “The Simpsons” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” while leading lady Moore offers her own perspective.
And Walter Cronkite is on the record about his sole on-air product endorsement — for cigarettes.
Their interviews are part of an online gold mine of TV history, EmmyTVLegends.org, created by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation.
Some 600 interviews have been taped for more than a decade by volunteers, including scholars and industry members. So far, about 200 have been posted at the site that launched this week, just before Sunday’s Emmy Awards, airing at 8 p.m. EDT on CBS.
“We really want television fans, and people who have great memories of television they watched growing up, to have fun, to dive in and discover things about the people they grew up with,” Terri Clark, foundation executive director, said.
Every profession and craft is included in the ongoing project, including performers, directors, writers, cinematographers and executives. The lengthy, detailed interviews follow an oral-history template and cover both the personal and professional.
The Web site is intended to serve those seeking a career in entertainment as well as the public, said archive director Karen L. Herman.
“There’s so much information about how you shoot something or you direct or you write. These things don’t change. The technology may change, but not the process,” Herman said.
The site is graphically appealing and easy to navigate. TV buffs will relish the opportunity to hear more than a sound bite from their favorites, including those who are now gone, such as Allen and Cronkite. More than 2,000 hours have been recorded with prominent industry figures, although not all Emmy winners, selected by a committee.
The ad-supported site is funded through the foundation, the educational and charitable arm of the TV academy that organizes the Emmys, and by donations. The foundation declined to provide the cost of the project to date.
New interviews are being added daily, and Herman and her staff are gradually indexing each two- to six-hour video to allow visitors to quickly find specific topics and cross-references.
On Tuesday alone, indexed interviews with Sanford, “Law & Order” creator-producer Dick Wolf and George Takei of “Star Trek” were added to the roughly 50 already available, Herman said.
Nearly everyone agrees to talk, but she has yet to persuade a short list topped by Bill Cosby, Mel Brooks and Jerry Seinfeld.
Jeff Abraham, a publicist and comedy aficionado, has conducted more than a half-dozen interviews for the project. He considers it a privilege to “sit at the feet” of TV’s best and brightest.
What results is a revealing interview but not a self-absorbed one. The talk with comedian-writer Bill Dana, for example, yields his assessment of the brilliance of “Tonight” host Allen, Abraham said.
“Both the interviewer and the interviewee know the importance of this: It’s for the ages,” he said.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More