by John C. Morley, Video Producer and Engineer
Walk into almost any community television station that has been operating for several decades, and there is a good chance you will find pieces of the community’s history stored somewhere inside. Shelves may contain videotapes with handwritten labels, cabinets may hold DVDs and other recording media, and hard drives or servers may contain years of locally produced programming. Some stations may even have recordings stored on formats newer staff have never worked with, and equipment that has not been powered on in years.
When those programs were originally produced, few people were probably thinking about their historical significance. The crew may have been covering a council meeting, recording a school concert, interviewing a local official, televising a parade, documenting a community celebration, or simply producing another episode of a local program. As the years pass, however, those seemingly routine recordings can become something much more important. They become a visual record of the people, places, events, and conversations that helped shape a community.
The challenge facing community television stations today is not simply deciding whether that history is worth preserving. It is determining whether we will still be able to access it when someone wants to see it years from now.
Yesterday’s Programming Becomes Tomorrow’s History
Community television stations have documented countless moments that may not exist anywhere else. Local government meetings, elections, school events, interviews, sporting events, dedications, parades, community celebrations, and conversations with longtime residents can all become part of a town’s historical record. Unlike material produced by major broadcasters, much of this footage may never have been duplicated or preserved by another organization.
A recording that seemed ordinary in 1996 can take on an entirely different significance thirty years later. Buildings visible in the background may have changed or disappeared, businesses may have closed, community leaders appearing on camera may no longer be with us, and children participating in a school program may now be raising families of their own. Even the way a downtown area looked, how residents discussed an important issue, or how a community celebrated a milestone can provide future generations with a perspective that written records and photographs alone cannot always capture.
This is one of the unique contributions community television makes to the places it serves. We are not only producing programming for today’s viewers. Whether we realize it at the time or not, we are also creating a visual record that may become increasingly valuable as the years pass.
Having the Recording Does Not Mean We Can Still Play It
Preserving that history becomes more complicated because television technology never stops changing. A station that has operated for several decades may have accumulated material on VHS, S-VHS, Hi8, MiniDV, DVCAM, DVDs, and a variety of digital recording and storage systems. Some formats once standard in television production are now rarely encountered outside archives and older facilities.
The recording itself may still sit safely on a shelf, but that does not guarantee the station can play it. Machines wear out, belts and mechanical components deteriorate, replacement parts become difficult to obtain, and manufacturers eventually discontinue support. At the same time, engineers and technicians who spent years working with older equipment retire, taking valuable knowledge about those systems with them.
This creates an interesting preservation problem. Stations are not only working against the physical aging of their media. They may also be working against the disappearance of the equipment and expertise necessary to access it. A shelf containing hundreds of tapes may seem like a substantial archive. Still, its value changes dramatically if no functioning machine can play those recordings.
Digital Does Not Automatically Mean Preserved
Digitizing older material is an important part of protecting an archive, but converting a recording into a digital file does not guarantee that it will remain available forever. Digital storage introduces its own set of challenges, and community stations should avoid assuming that once something has been copied to a hard drive or server, the preservation job is complete.
Hard drives fail, servers are replaced, files become corrupted, and material can be accidentally deleted. Storage systems are reorganized as technology changes, and files can be moved without anyone documenting where they went. A station may also discover years later that important programming exists only on an aging storage device that has not been tested recently.
For that reason, an important distinction exists between storing video and preserving video. Effective preservation requires stations to think about where important files are located, whether reliable additional copies exist, how those copies are maintained, and how material will be migrated as storage technology continues to evolve. No historically important collection should depend entirely on one aging hard drive, one server, or one physical location.
Knowing What You Have Is Part of Preservation
Imagine receiving a request for an interview that your station recorded fifteen years ago. Someone remembers the program, knows approximately when it aired, and believes the station still has a copy. Would someone working at the station today know where to begin looking for it?
This is where cataloging becomes as important as storage. A station may possess thousands of hours of valuable programming, but that archive becomes considerably less useful when nobody can determine what the files or recordings contain. Names such as PROGRAM001, FINALVIDEO2, or MEETING_OLD might have made sense to the person who created them, but they provide very little information to someone searching the archive years later.
A useful archive should provide enough information for future staff members to understand what they are looking at without relying on the memory of the person who originally recorded it. Program titles, recording dates, locations, names of people appearing in the program, event descriptions, original media formats, and storage locations can all make material easier to identify and retrieve. Consistent naming conventions and a searchable inventory can make an enormous difference without requiring a sophisticated archival system.
Deciding What Deserves Priority
For stations with decades of programming, preserving everything at once may be unrealistic. Limited staff, budgets, equipment, and time mean that some form of prioritization may be necessary. The first goal should be to understand what the station has and identify which recordings face the greatest risk of becoming inaccessible.
Historically significant local events, government proceedings, interviews with community leaders and longtime residents, major anniversaries, original local programming, and footage documenting places that have substantially changed may deserve particular attention. Stations should also consider the physical condition of their media and whether the equipment required to play a particular format is becoming difficult to maintain.
Prioritization does not mean deciding that everything else is unimportant. It offers a practical way to start a project that might otherwise feel overwhelming. Saving the most vulnerable and irreplaceable material first can protect key parts of the collection while a broader preservation strategy develops.
Preservation Does Not Have to Happen Overnight
Community television stations already have demanding responsibilities. Programs need to be produced, government meetings need to be covered, equipment needs to be maintained, schedules need to be managed, and staff and volunteers often accomplish a remarkable amount with limited resources. Understandably, an archive project can remain on the list of things everyone intends to address someday.
The problem is that waiting carries its own risk. Legacy equipment continues to age, older media may deteriorate, and institutional knowledge can disappear when longtime employees or volunteers leave. An unlabeled recording becomes much more difficult to identify when the person who produced it is no longer available to explain what it contains.
A preservation effort does not have to begin with an enormous investment or an attempt to digitize decades of programming at once. Stations can start by identifying the formats in their archives, determining which playback equipment remains operational, and inventorying the material currently being stored. From there, consistent naming and cataloging procedures can help identify historically significant recordings and prioritize media at greatest risk. As material is migrated, maintaining reliable copies in more than one location can help ensure that today’s work protects those recordings for the future.
Preserving More Than Television Programs
Community television has always been closely connected to the communities it serves, which is precisely why these archives can become so important. A council meeting, parade, school event, interview, dedication, election program, or community celebration may initially be seen as just another production on the station schedule. Decades later, that same recording may provide a glimpse into a community that can no longer be recreated.
Technology will continue to change. Cameras will be replaced, servers will be upgraded, storage systems will evolve, and recording formats that seem permanent today will eventually give way to something new. That progression is inevitable, but losing the history captured through those technologies does not have to be.
Perhaps this is a good time for every community television station to take another look at the shelves, cabinets, servers, drives, and storage areas that have accumulated over the years. There may be far more than old television programs sitting there. Pieces of a community’s history may exist nowhere else.
The question worth asking is not only what we have saved from the past, but what we are holding today that our community will wish we had preserved twenty years from now.
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Are We Losing Our Community’s Video History?
Posted: September 20, 2026 by Rich Desimone
by John C. Morley, Video Producer and Engineer
Walk into almost any community television station that has been operating for several decades, and there is a good chance you will find pieces of the community’s history stored somewhere inside. Shelves may contain videotapes with handwritten labels, cabinets may hold DVDs and other recording media, and hard drives or servers may contain years of locally produced programming. Some stations may even have recordings stored on formats newer staff have never worked with, and equipment that has not been powered on in years.
When those programs were originally produced, few people were probably thinking about their historical significance. The crew may have been covering a council meeting, recording a school concert, interviewing a local official, televising a parade, documenting a community celebration, or simply producing another episode of a local program. As the years pass, however, those seemingly routine recordings can become something much more important. They become a visual record of the people, places, events, and conversations that helped shape a community.
The challenge facing community television stations today is not simply deciding whether that history is worth preserving. It is determining whether we will still be able to access it when someone wants to see it years from now.
Yesterday’s Programming Becomes Tomorrow’s History
Community television stations have documented countless moments that may not exist anywhere else. Local government meetings, elections, school events, interviews, sporting events, dedications, parades, community celebrations, and conversations with longtime residents can all become part of a town’s historical record. Unlike material produced by major broadcasters, much of this footage may never have been duplicated or preserved by another organization.
A recording that seemed ordinary in 1996 can take on an entirely different significance thirty years later. Buildings visible in the background may have changed or disappeared, businesses may have closed, community leaders appearing on camera may no longer be with us, and children participating in a school program may now be raising families of their own. Even the way a downtown area looked, how residents discussed an important issue, or how a community celebrated a milestone can provide future generations with a perspective that written records and photographs alone cannot always capture.
This is one of the unique contributions community television makes to the places it serves. We are not only producing programming for today’s viewers. Whether we realize it at the time or not, we are also creating a visual record that may become increasingly valuable as the years pass.
Having the Recording Does Not Mean We Can Still Play It
Preserving that history becomes more complicated because television technology never stops changing. A station that has operated for several decades may have accumulated material on VHS, S-VHS, Hi8, MiniDV, DVCAM, DVDs, and a variety of digital recording and storage systems. Some formats once standard in television production are now rarely encountered outside archives and older facilities.
The recording itself may still sit safely on a shelf, but that does not guarantee the station can play it. Machines wear out, belts and mechanical components deteriorate, replacement parts become difficult to obtain, and manufacturers eventually discontinue support. At the same time, engineers and technicians who spent years working with older equipment retire, taking valuable knowledge about those systems with them.
This creates an interesting preservation problem. Stations are not only working against the physical aging of their media. They may also be working against the disappearance of the equipment and expertise necessary to access it. A shelf containing hundreds of tapes may seem like a substantial archive. Still, its value changes dramatically if no functioning machine can play those recordings.
Digital Does Not Automatically Mean Preserved
Digitizing older material is an important part of protecting an archive, but converting a recording into a digital file does not guarantee that it will remain available forever. Digital storage introduces its own set of challenges, and community stations should avoid assuming that once something has been copied to a hard drive or server, the preservation job is complete.
Hard drives fail, servers are replaced, files become corrupted, and material can be accidentally deleted. Storage systems are reorganized as technology changes, and files can be moved without anyone documenting where they went. A station may also discover years later that important programming exists only on an aging storage device that has not been tested recently.
For that reason, an important distinction exists between storing video and preserving video. Effective preservation requires stations to think about where important files are located, whether reliable additional copies exist, how those copies are maintained, and how material will be migrated as storage technology continues to evolve. No historically important collection should depend entirely on one aging hard drive, one server, or one physical location.
Knowing What You Have Is Part of Preservation
Imagine receiving a request for an interview that your station recorded fifteen years ago. Someone remembers the program, knows approximately when it aired, and believes the station still has a copy. Would someone working at the station today know where to begin looking for it?
This is where cataloging becomes as important as storage. A station may possess thousands of hours of valuable programming, but that archive becomes considerably less useful when nobody can determine what the files or recordings contain. Names such as PROGRAM001, FINALVIDEO2, or MEETING_OLD might have made sense to the person who created them, but they provide very little information to someone searching the archive years later.
A useful archive should provide enough information for future staff members to understand what they are looking at without relying on the memory of the person who originally recorded it. Program titles, recording dates, locations, names of people appearing in the program, event descriptions, original media formats, and storage locations can all make material easier to identify and retrieve. Consistent naming conventions and a searchable inventory can make an enormous difference without requiring a sophisticated archival system.
Deciding What Deserves Priority
For stations with decades of programming, preserving everything at once may be unrealistic. Limited staff, budgets, equipment, and time mean that some form of prioritization may be necessary. The first goal should be to understand what the station has and identify which recordings face the greatest risk of becoming inaccessible.
Historically significant local events, government proceedings, interviews with community leaders and longtime residents, major anniversaries, original local programming, and footage documenting places that have substantially changed may deserve particular attention. Stations should also consider the physical condition of their media and whether the equipment required to play a particular format is becoming difficult to maintain.
Prioritization does not mean deciding that everything else is unimportant. It offers a practical way to start a project that might otherwise feel overwhelming. Saving the most vulnerable and irreplaceable material first can protect key parts of the collection while a broader preservation strategy develops.
Preservation Does Not Have to Happen Overnight
Community television stations already have demanding responsibilities. Programs need to be produced, government meetings need to be covered, equipment needs to be maintained, schedules need to be managed, and staff and volunteers often accomplish a remarkable amount with limited resources. Understandably, an archive project can remain on the list of things everyone intends to address someday.
The problem is that waiting carries its own risk. Legacy equipment continues to age, older media may deteriorate, and institutional knowledge can disappear when longtime employees or volunteers leave. An unlabeled recording becomes much more difficult to identify when the person who produced it is no longer available to explain what it contains.
A preservation effort does not have to begin with an enormous investment or an attempt to digitize decades of programming at once. Stations can start by identifying the formats in their archives, determining which playback equipment remains operational, and inventorying the material currently being stored. From there, consistent naming and cataloging procedures can help identify historically significant recordings and prioritize media at greatest risk. As material is migrated, maintaining reliable copies in more than one location can help ensure that today’s work protects those recordings for the future.
Preserving More Than Television Programs
Community television has always been closely connected to the communities it serves, which is precisely why these archives can become so important. A council meeting, parade, school event, interview, dedication, election program, or community celebration may initially be seen as just another production on the station schedule. Decades later, that same recording may provide a glimpse into a community that can no longer be recreated.
Technology will continue to change. Cameras will be replaced, servers will be upgraded, storage systems will evolve, and recording formats that seem permanent today will eventually give way to something new. That progression is inevitable, but losing the history captured through those technologies does not have to be.
Perhaps this is a good time for every community television station to take another look at the shelves, cabinets, servers, drives, and storage areas that have accumulated over the years. There may be far more than old television programs sitting there. Pieces of a community’s history may exist nowhere else.
The question worth asking is not only what we have saved from the past, but what we are holding today that our community will wish we had preserved twenty years from now.
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