The news film consists of film segments (usually 30-45 seconds) which were used to back-up the news broadcast and portray newsworthy events within the Greater Philadelphia Area. There is NO videotape within the news film collection. The collections do NOT contain any full news broadcasts.
All materials are stored in an off-site location and require prior notification from researchers for access. The individual stations maintain all rights to their materials and the Archives requires written permission from the station before film or other materials may be borrowed. A hand operated film viewer, but no other equipment, is available to view materials at the Archives. The Archives does NOT copy film to videotape for researchers.
We STRONGLY suggest that researchers contact the station news department to inquire about the possibility that they could use segments of film before requesting film cans be pulled from the storage facility.
WPVI-TV, Channel 6
WPVI-TV materials at the Archives are in two segments- public affairs materials and news film . The public affairs materials consist of mostly two-inch videotape copies of programs produced by the station including such series as "Visions." The Archives has no equipment capable of viewing this videotape.The news film collection spans the period 1947 - 1983. During the period 1947-1961 various months are missing and the years 1962-1967 and 1969 are totally missing. There is no access for researchers to the news film collection except through daily log books. These log books indicate the film assignments for each day and each date must then be checked against an inventory of film cans available at the Archives. There is no guarantee that there are film segments for these assignments within the WPVI news film collection and many of the segments were pulled by WPVI for later use and never returned to the film cans.
KYW-TV, Channel 3
KYW-TV materials at the Archives consist almost entirely of news film segments for the period 1956 through 1972. Many dates are missing and there are no log books for accessing the collection. The materials are often undated and at times unidentified. A listing of subjects and/or dates is available in the Archives officesInquiries concerning the collections should be directed to:
Urban Archives (urban@temple.edu)