Hi Steve,
I spent almost a decade working in television post-production and image/footage licensing before returning to graduate school and starting a new career in art history museum work. So I will preface my advice by saying that while I have extensive first-hand experience with this type of thing, my knowledge isn't current - although I did recently make use of my previous experience by licensing footage to use in an intro video for a recent exhibition.
For what it's worth, licensing material from old television shows can often be expensive and complicated, especially if you have never done that type of work before. The company that produced the show may not be the entity that owns it, and there may need to be separate licensing of music, etc., if you intend to use audio as well as visuals. Some television shows are not available for license at all, because they may still be rerunning the series (and providers like Netflix and Hulu complicate the issue).
Having said that, I would suggest contacting the archive sales department for whatever network originally ran the show (google the network and 'archive sales' or 'stock footage' and you should come up with the contact). They will most likely be able to walk you through the process, and point you to the rights-holder, if they are not the primary one. They will be probably ask you questions about the size of your exhibition, how many people you anticipate visiting it, what the primary purpose of the exhibition is, how long the exhibition will run, and your tax status. All these things will play into what you will be charged; if you are a non-profit, your cost will almost always be less than it would be for commercial licensing.
And finally, regarding the actual footage, archives often provide low-res footage until the deal is concluded, and then send you master copies in whatever format you want.
If you need help navigating these issues, you can also hire a professional licensing freelancer to take care of the job for you. You can find an independent researcher by searching places like this:
https://archivevalley.com/archive-researchers/ (full disclosure: I don't have any personal experience with Archive Valley, but have heard from friends that it is a good resource.). If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. Hope this helps!
Sarah
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Sarah J Biggs
Collections Curator
Saint Louis Art Museum
Saint Louis, Missouri
United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-08-2019 12:18 PM
From: Steve Lucht
Subject: Television Footage
We want to include clips from old television shows (eg, WKRP, West Wing, etc.) in a new exhibit. Where can we obtain footage and what copyright issues concern this?
Thanks,
Steve
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Steve Lucht
Curator
Carillon Historical Park - Dayton History
Dayton OH
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