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Boston TV video/film archives

M

mikeradio

Does anyone know if the Boston TV stations have film/video archives, similar to the newspaper "morgues"? I am in very early stages of researching the public history of my city agency, and along with newspaper resources wonder if vintage film/video exists of major Fire/EMS/Police incidents from the 1950's to the present. Also, when WHDH-TV Ch. 5 closed shop, was their newsfilm archive sold, donated, or simply junked? Any leads are most welcome!

Mike Mynahan
Boston EMS
 
Most of WHDH-TV's (the old Channel 5) archival footage was donated to WSBK-TV and WBZ-TV. For four seasons (1972, 1973, 1974 and and 1975), the Red Sox were on broadcast on WBZ-TV (Channel 4). Eventually, WSBK-TV (Channel 38) secured the broadcast rights to the Red Sox in 1976. And with the Red Sox contract, the old WHDH-TV archive library (both Red Sox and news footage) was inherited to TV-38. Now today, with both Channels 4 or 38 existing under the same "roof", they commmonly own the old WHDH-TV library. Be assured, the old WHDH-TV library was not junked after Channel 5 left Morrisey Boulevard. It think they (The Boston Herald-Traveler) understood the value of that PRICELESS film and tape archive.

You might want to know that some of the old WHDH-TV's color cameras and associated equipment were donated to the old Grahm Junior College (a television and radio training school) after the station's demise after March 19th, 1972. Of course, Grahm is no longer in existance today.

So, there you have it!

> Does anyone know if the Boston TV stations have film/video
> archives, similar to the newspaper "morgues"? I am in very
> early stages of researching the public history of my city
> agency, and along with newspaper resources wonder if vintage
> film/video exists of major Fire/EMS/Police incidents from
> the 1950's to the present. Also, when WHDH-TV Ch. 5 closed
> shop, was their newsfilm archive sold, donated, or simply
> junked? Any leads are most welcome!
>
> Mike Mynahan
> Boston EMS
> <P ID="signature">______________
Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts</P>
 
Peter:

WSBK-38 began broadcasting the Red Sox in 1975. I have a 1975 WSBK/Red Sox schedule which indicates televised games as being on TV-38.

The major advantage to the old Channel 5 film library is that I believe they converted to color newsfilm around 1965 or so, while both WBZ-4 and the then-WNAC-7 didn't until mid-1968. My parents got our first color TV set in March of 1968, and I remember that Channel 5's newsfilm was in full color, whereas newsfilm on both Channels 4 and 7 were in black-and-white, and remained so for a few months (although I think both stations did do some film documentaries in color from 1965-onwards).

Thus, the old Channel 5 library likely is the only one to contain color film of major Boston/New England news/sports events between 1965 and mid-1968.

For sports, I think there's only one complete game from the old WHDH-5 era: The last or second-to-last Red Sox game of the 1967 regular-season against Minnesota at Fenway. There may be edited highlights on tape of a number of other sports telecasts.

If only the sports archive contained more complete games. I believe there was a period in the mid-sixties when the old WHDH-5 televised the Red Sox, the Bruins, and the Celtics, with home games of the three in color. I thought that only the Sox were live; didn't the Bruins' and Celtics' telecasts get shown on tape after the 11 P.M. newscasts on Sundays and Fridays respectively?
 
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