It's all about the elements! (1 Viewer)

[Jack P]

I was using the term "obligation" in the context of who has the primary responsibility for doing it. And I do believe the networks/stations should be preserving their history where it can be done. Decisions might be made on budgetary matters, but sometimes decisions have been made based on the prejudices of those in authority. The reason why a lot of ABC Sports material of the 1960s such as all the "Wide World Of Sports" broadcasts exist in videotape quality is because ABC had a sports department headed by Roone Arledge who cared about their work. OTOH, at NBC, the Sports department was under the control of NBC News headed by Reuven Frank, a man who hated sports and who wasn't going to set aside space for anything in that genre (hence the reason why you don't have any NBC copies of World Series broadcasts older than 1969 and only because the CBC preserved kinescopes for 1965 and 1968 do we have those years).

But I am going to maintain as a historian that there is value to scholars/researchers in having a broadcast archive inventoried for research in the way Vanderbilt Archives has done since 1968. And thank goodness Vanderbilt was showing foresight on the evening news material sooner than others did, because if Vanderbilt hadn't done it we would have almost *nothing* of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley doing a full "Huntley-Brinkley Report" newscast.

 

[Ron1973]

I know not everyone is a wrestling fan, but there's a YouTube clip of when Memphis Wrestling was on WHBQ from 1976 and there was a push on the nightly news for a Rocky Johnson/Jerry "The King" Lawler match. That's actually preceded by Dave Brown (in a leisure suit nonetheless!) doing the weather. I don't know who saved the clip, but it's a fascinating part of history for me and I'm glad, for one, it was saved!

 

[howard1908]

I know not everyone is a wrestling fan, but there's a YouTube clip of when Memphis Wrestling was on WHBQ from 1976 and there was a push on the nightly news for a Rocky Johnson/Jerry "The King" Lawler match. That's actually preceded by Dave Brown (in a leisure suit nonetheless!) doing the weather. I don't know who saved the clip, but it's a fascinating part of history for me and I'm glad, for one, it was saved!

One thing I do find strange is the amount of old wrestling footage still extant, in fact as far as retro sports go there's at least ten times as many local and national wrestling matches extant from the 50s 60s and early 70s than all other sports from that era combined that includes football and college basketball,the NBA was considered inferior to it's collegiate counterpart up until about 1968, 1969 so i doubt if much coverage was given beyond a occasional local broadcast.Maybe it's their passionate fan base keeps these shows in circulation, I just wish some of things I like had such passionate fans.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi jack,

you and i are not as far off as it might appear.

i think i understood your use of obligation. and i have no problem with your comment about historical value. whatever value difference we might place on it, it certainly cant hurt historians to have information.

and yes, it is too bad that people make biased decisions about stuff. but that happens everywhere, in all walks of life.

if you were gonna sell it to the taxpayer, i think you would need to have a system designed to store and access this info. as well as possibly a way to delete things after so much time has gone, etc. otherwise you would have a never ending growth.

and then outline what you hope to accomplish, and how this information can be used to better our lives. and i think you need to come up with something better than satisfying our curiosity.

my historical curiosity tends to go back to early civilization, where much of what we know is passed down from generation to generation. for example, we dont know if homer or aesop were real people.

i am not against storing of data, if there is an equitable system in place, to do so. forcing entities to do stuff with their own property, or labeling it their obligation goes a little beyond, for me.

there are doubtless many ideas that designers could come up. but if we want to continue to give our businesses free will, and it is gonna be a govt system for historians, one could always find ways to get donations, like a tax write-off.

plus, dont most news events have many, many camera crew for all the various entities that cover the news ? it isnt like we need more than one copy or 2 of most events.

nice talking to you.

 

[BobO'Link]

One thing I do find strange is the amount of old wrestling footage still extant, in fact as far as retro sports go there's at least ten times as many local and national wrestling matches extant from the 50s 60s and early 70s than all other sports from that era combined that includes football and college basketball,the NBA was considered inferior to it's collegiate counterpart up until about 1968, 1969 so i doubt if much coverage was given beyond a occasional local broadcast.Maybe it's their passionate fan base keeps these shows in circulation, I just wish some of things I like had such passionate fans.

It may not be the fans who are preserving such material. I worked for a facility which produced The Gene Williams Show during the 80s/90s. It was a hosted country music show where Gene would tell stories, or just rattle on about stuff, between music videos. *He* paid for his own archive copy of the program when it was produced and it left each week with him. The program aired weekly and the facility kept about 3 months of back programs which were used in a rotating fashion to record the newer programs. When he stopped using them to record the program the old copies were recycled (i.e. destroyed or recorded over depending on number of record cycles on the tape). I can see many of the old wrestling performers doing the same thing, especially those like Jerry Lawler.

 

[Ron1973]

It may not be the fans who are preserving such material. I worked for a facility which produced The Gene Williams Show during the 80s/90s. It was a hosted country music show where Gene would tell stories, or just rattle on about stuff, between music videos. *He* paid for his own archive copy of the program when it was produced and it left each week with him. The program aired weekly and the facility kept about 3 months of back programs which were used in a rotating fashion to record the newer programs. When he stopped using them to record the program the old copies were recycled (i.e. destroyed or recorded over depending on number of record cycles on the tape). I can see many of the old wrestling performers doing the same thing, especially those like Jerry Lawler.

I remember KAIT replacing Hee Haw with his show in either 92 or 93. I remember they had gone to all re-runs and simultaneously, KAIT, WREG and WBBJ all dropped it at the same time, so I'm guessing the ratings were so abysmal they didn't bother to finish out the run of that last season.

Most of what seems to exist with little variation are homemade tapes of wrestling of that era. Someone on YouTube has up oodles of early-mid 80's Memphis Wrestling, but it is the cut versions that aired in the Evansville, IN market. Instead of the 1 1/2 hours that were featured on WMC, these were cut to an hour. The going story, which I assume to be true, is that the tapes were wiped after an airing of the show. Of course, WMC was live anyway, so I don't know if the affiliate stations had to send back the tapes or if there was a backup copy made as a "just in case."

 

[Dave Lawrence]

but i think most of us are referring to tv shows, not game shows nor news shows, etc.

Um...game shows that aired on TV are in fact TV shows.