Via MetaFilter comes this link to the Archive of American Television website. It’s an offshoot of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation, better known as the organization responsible for the Emmy Awards. The Archive has existed for over 10 years, but has only recently completed its master project — more than 2000 hours of videotaped interviews with almost 500 performers, producers, production people, and other figures who have contributed to the 60+ year history of American television. Many of the interviews can be watched online via YouTube (such as the interviews I linked to recently when entertainer Edie Adams passed away).
You might, for example, enjoy this 1999 interview with the late Studs Terkel as he talks about his own involvement in the early days of Chicago television. The local stations in Chicago were a hotbed of programming innovation in the 1950s, launching the careers of people like Dave Garroway and Burr Tillstrom, and Terkel was part of the Chicago broadcasting scene for decades.
