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Museum of Broadcast Communications lost lease and has no new location yet.

davideduardo

Moderator/Administrator
Staff member
The local radio and RV TV museum lost its locale.


They apparently have no new location yet and are in "stay tuned" mode for survival.

Does anyone have further information? We are losing radio and TV history museums and sites and the Internet is filling up with misinformation from inaccurate data sources like Wikipedia. The advent of AI will simply take all this inaccurate information and legitimize it, making things worse.
 
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The local radio and RV museum lost its locale.
I know it's a typo, but perhaps that's the better idea. Put it in with an RV museum where there's more space on a highway than in a big city where real estate values are high...

 
We are losing radio and TV history museums and sites and the Internet is filling up with misinformation from inaccurate data sources like Wikipedia. The advent of AI will simply take all this inaccurate information and legitimize it, making things worse.
For readers in Missouri or nearby, the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia has been gathering broadcast-related material for a research archive in cooperation with the Missouri Broadcasters Association. Frank Absher, who created the St. Louis Broadcasting Hall of Fame, is working with them in addition to his project. I recently made some donations of material to them myself. I mention this because it's possible that other states' historical societies and/or broadcasters' associations are doing something similar.
 
For those who don't know, the Museum of Broadcast Communications (based in Chicago) is the organization that runs the annual Radio Hall of Fame. They just announced the nominees for this year's class.


One other museum I know of is the Paley Center For Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio. They have sites in NYC and LA. The museum was founded by CBS founder Bill Paley.

 
The MBC struggled at its first site in the South Loop, at its second site in the Chicago Cultural Center, and was supposed to have solved its financial problems at this, its third site. The general supposition was that the MBC owned the building and leased out the rest of it. Guess not. They have a large tape library plus exhibits. Can’t imagine the fourth time will be the charm.
 
One other museum I know of is the Paley Center For Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio. They have sites in NYC and LA. The museum was founded by CBS founder Bill Paley.
There is also the Pavek Museum in Minnesota.

 
I mentioned this museum to the head of another museum in Chicago a few years ago. Stone silence. No response. I found that odd. I suspect that they don't agree with some of the inductees. They may want to locate outside Chicago in a low overhead location.
 
I mentioned this museum to the head of another museum in Chicago a few years ago. Stone silence. No response. I found that odd. I suspect that they don't agree with some of the inductees. They may want to locate outside Chicago in a low overhead location.

Keep in mind that the hall of fame is a fundraiser. From what I see, the people they induct are likely to buy tables for the dinner, and that raises money for the museum. So that may explain why most of the inductees are from other big city stations, and not only Chicago.

At one time, this was mainly an advertiser-based museum, because Chicago was such a hub for major ad agencies. I think that's no longer the case.
 
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I mentioned this museum to the head of another museum in Chicago a few years ago. Stone silence. No response. I found that odd. I suspect that they don't agree with some of the inductees. They may want to locate outside Chicago in a low overhead location.

???

I wouldn't expect the director of the Foundation of Poetry Museum or the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture to have any opinion on a broadcast history museum.

I'm making the assumption there aren't multiple broadcast/media museums in Chicago. Maybe I'm making a bad assumption.
 
I wouldn't expect the director of the Foundation of Poetry Museum or the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture to have any opinion on a broadcast history museum.

I'm making the assumption there aren't multiple broadcast/media museums in Chicago. Maybe I'm making a bad assumption.
It's a lot more general than that. I don't want to get into specifics.

They're both on this list, but I don't regard it or the Museum of Broadcast Communications to be nearly as narrow and esoteric as many on this list.

 
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Some folks may remember the Newseum in Washington DC. It was founded in the 90s by USA Today founder Al Neuharth, originally located in their Arlington headquarters. He endowed it with some money, and it seemed pretty solid. Then they built their own building on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the middle of the high tourist area. Within a few years, they ran out of money. Part of it was the $20 or more entry fee they charged in a town where all the other museums are free. Part of it was they overexpanded. It closed in 2019, just before the pandemic. I have no idea whatever happened to the collection. The building was sold to Johns Hopkins University. and is being redone for them.
 
It's a lot more general than that. I don't want to get into specifics.
Absolutely fair. Wasn't trying to pry, I just found your story around their non-reaction surprising.
 
Absolutely fair. Wasn't trying to pry, I just found your story around their non-reaction surprising.

Unless he's never heard of it. That's what I was thinking. It's a pretty selective audience.

The museum is talking about doing pop-up shows and using alternate locations, and that sounds like a better idea than paying for a building. They don't hold the hall of fame dinner at the museum, but rather at a nearby hotel.
 
One small detail I just noticed: This year's Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place in New York, not Chicago.

The 2023 Radio Hall of Fame inductees will be honored at the in-person 2023 Radio Hall of Fame Induction ceremony on Thursday, November 2nd, at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in New York City.

Previous induction ceremonies took place in Chicago. So that may be the rest of the story.

 
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