0138: WSAZ-TV (Television station), Huntington, West Virginia Collection, 1953-2003

Authors

Marshall University Special Collections

Document Type

Finding Aid

Publication Date

1976

Abstract

The collection is quite extensive and consists of several large groups of materials. These four primary groups make up the bulk of the collection. The first consists of over 1,600 film reels spanning 160 cubic ft. through the years 1952-1983. The second group is made up of over 2000 U-Matic /Betacam tapes spanning 300 cubic ft. through the years 1978-2011. The third is around 86 large archival boxes of news scripts spanning 87 cubic ft. through the full coverage of years 1952-2011. The last group being the index card filing system of over 96,000 cards spanning 23.225 cubic ft and only covering the years of film and U-matic tape coverage (1952-1991).

The materials are organized loosely in a chronological fashion. Broadly defined these materials are separated into two large groups based on their physical media: Film reels and Magnetic Tape. This reflects the station’s technological development during this time. Film is predominantly used during the early years of the collection, roughly 1952- 1983. It is difficult to determine the exact chronology of each film’s reel. Though they continue in ascending order, due to repeated coverage or use of reference material, some clips have been removed and sliced into more current reels for ongoing stories. For instance, the film reel 1964 (0050-0085) may be missing clip #0076 because it was part of an ongoing crime investigation that culminates later in that year.

Magnetic tape was introduced to the station in 1978 to experiment with the new technological medium. By 1983, film was phased out completely for magnetic tape videocassettes called, “U-matics.” This introduction of this cheaper medium allowed the network to assign individual tapes to each reporter. These tapes assigned to each reporter follow a consistent chronological period but often overlap with one another since each reporter would cover different stories on the same day. This makes the tapes chronological on a large scale, but each tape may span the same or longer coverage based on the reporter (i.e. #975_IRR and #976_YOHE might contain the same time of August – December 1991 but only contain the days that the reporter covered).

The collection consists of its own index card system for individual clips, but after the introduction to Betacam each tape had a “tape log” glued to the back of the case. This provides a loose description of most of the materials within the collection though anything beyond 1991 will require time to sift through each tape to locate visual material. The index card system has been digitized to allow for ease of use by making each card full text searchable.

This collection consists primarily of on-site camera coverage, without voiceover coverage from news anchors. The scripts for each of these news stories is contained alongside the coverage to demonstrate what would have been said to introduce the footage. Unfortunately, most program material was not kept by the station and so there is very little if any locally produced material other than news. This collection contains no footage of popular locally produced shows aside from some footage of the 1960 WSAZ Olds-A-Thon and Saturday Night Jamboree.

Currently, the collection’s finding aid only accounts for the card scans (1952-1991). As more of the material is digitized and maintained, the remaining groups of this collection shall be inserted into this finding aid. If you are looking for material outside the content of the card index, please utilize the Access and Use email located below.

Rights

Special collections material is obtained from many sources and is intended primarily for research and educational purposes. Certain works may be protected by copyright, trademark, or related interests not governed by the department. It is up to the researcher to verify that they have permission to use these materials for publication or other activities.

Accession Number

1976/07.0138

Access and Use

For more information or to use any of these collections, contact:
Special Collections, Morrow Library
Marshall University
One John Marshall Drive
Huntington, WV 25755
(304) 696-2343
speccoll@marshall.edu

Recommended Citation

WSAZ-TV (Television station), Huntington, West Virginia Collection, 1953-2003, Accession No. 1976/07.0138, Special Collections Department, Marshall University, Huntington, WV.