KUED will contribute a portion of its archival television footage to the public media’s American Archive.
The American Archive, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) initiative, is a comprehensive effort to inventory, digitize and preserve local and national public media content produced over the last six decades. The Archive will ensure that the public investment in non-commercial media, totaling billions of dollars over the years, is fully protected for, and accessible to, generations to come.
“The American Archive is one of the most important responsibilities facing our public media system,” said Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of CPB. “Taxpayers have funded more than half a century of local, regional and national television and radio programming, and the American Archive will serve as a return on that investment.”
Since the project launched two years ago, public television and radio stations across the country have identified nearly 2.5 million records, including completed local and national programs, raw footage, unedited interviews, recorded speeches, scripts and photos. This totals more than one million hours of video, film, and audio recordings from more than 100 stations.
KUED will contribute historic archival content from its many decades of local productions to the American Archive. KUED is currently digitizing more than 35,000 archival records, including completed programs, the wealth of footage not included in final local production, as well as related media. The end goal is that one day anyone will be able to access KUED's vast collection of high quality production assets.
The highlight of KUED's inventory was the discovery of three half-hour shows from early years in the station’s history in 1957-1958. The programs, shot in the historic LDS Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, feature Alexander Schreiner, famed Tabernacle organist of over 50 years. The footage captures Schreiner playing a series of concerts on the Tabernacle’s magnificent pipe organ, including the works of French composers, a program of fugues, and several Romantic Period composers.
This material will be digitized and included as part of the Archive’s first 40,000 hours of content.
“We are proud to have a role in creating the American Archive,” said Michael Dunn, General Manager at KUED. “As part of this initiative, public radio and television stations across the country are not only contributing to a historical record of public media in the 20th century, they are also re-connecting audiences, present and future, to the media that holds the memory of the events, people, and landscapes of their communities.”
Public radio and television stations participating in the initiative have completed the initial phases of the project, including inventorying their archives and selecting the content to be preserved. As a next step, CPB is preparing to transition the American Archive to a new permanent home that will sustain and expand the work of the Archive moving forward.
CPB CONTACT:
Nicole Mezlo
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(202) 879-9836
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