Today is the 50th anniversary of the very first televised presidential debate. On Monday, September 26th, 1960 the three television networks broadcast an hour-long debate between Vice President Richard Nixon (Republican) and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy (Democrat), held at WBBM-TV in Chicago. The debate was also heard on a variety of radio networks. Three additional debates followed in October. Read more about the debate here, from the Encyclopedia of Television (1st edition).

The Kennedy Presidential Library and YouTube have put the entire first debate online in its entirity to commemorate the anniversary. All four debates can be viewed online at the Museum of Broadcast Communications (you'll need a free account and then search for "Kennedy-Nixon Debate"). You can also watch the first debate via Internet Archive:

I'd like to think that all three networks recorded their broadcasts of the debates but I don't know for sure. Do all three network versions still exist for each debate? I don't know that either. However, aside from a brief network identification and announcements about program pre-emptions, the broadcasts should be completely identical. The Museum of Broadcast Communications has the CBS broadcasts of the first three debates and the ABC broadcast for the fourth and final debate. UCLA's Film & Television Archive has the CBS broadcasts of the first three debate while the Paley Center for Media has all four CBS broadcasts of the debates. The Library of Congress likely has copies as well but I wasn't able to find them using a quick search.

The version of the first debate available at YouTube appears to have slightly better video quality than the Museum of Broadcast Communications version, which has better audio quality. The YouTube version runs 58:34 while the Museum of Broadcast Communications versions run 59:03. The YouTube version does not include a CBS announcement that The Andy Griffith Show and Hennesey won't be seen (but will return the following week) while the Museum of Broadcast Communications version does. The Internet Archive version seems to be identical to the YouTube version.

All of the existing copies are either 16mm kinescopes or videotape of some sort (the Museum of Broadcast Communications versions are said to be U-Matic tape. Portions of the four debates have been released on VHS/DVD but I do not believe all four have ever been made available commercially. I am not aware of any restoration attempts to make existing copies look better. Who owns the copyright to presidential debates? Who would foot the bill for restoring them?

An article in The New York Times by Richard Sandomir reveals that a complete copy of the 7th game of the 1960 World Series (broadcast by NBC on Thursday, October 13th, 1960) was found in Bing Crosby's wine cellar in December of 2009. The game pitted the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees. Crosby, a co-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, couldn't bring himself to watch the game unfold on television and instead listened to it on the radio in Paris. But he wanted a copy of the television broadcast in case the Pirates won (they did) so he had hired a company to make a kinescope recording. Although the broadcast was in color, the kinescope recordings are in black and white.

The resulting five reels of 16mm film -- running two hours and 36 minutes -- were discovered when Robert Bader, vice president for marketing and production for Bing Crosby Enterprises, was sifting through videotapes of Crosby's television appearances and found two reels marked "1960 World Series" (he later found the other three). Negotiations with Major League Baseball mean the game will be aired on the MLB Network in December. It will also come out on DVD. Be sure to read the entire article for more details.

That Crosby had this recording made is not surprising, nor is the fact that it survived several decades. He was an early proponent of audio and video recording and was heavily involved in the development of videotape. What I didn't know was that there were companies that would produce kinescopes for a fee, although it is possible that Crosby was able to use his connections within the television industry to have the recordings made.