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CBC
ARCHIVES
Past,
Present and Future
What's the lifespan of a radio broadcast
or a television show after it leaves the air? A day? An hour?
A second? To most people, radio and TV programming is instant
and disposable. A program comes, a program goes, another takes
its place.
Not so in CBC Archives. Here, more
than seven decades of CBC radio and television history lives
on - in millions of discs, films, tapes, photographs, paper
records and electronic databases.
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And what a collection. It's hard to imagine anything more valuable
as a programming resource or cultural artifact. From live news and
documentaries, to state funerals, sports championships and kids
TV, the sum of this content is a rich, irreplaceable record of Canada's
national heritage. And with each day's broadcasts, the story grows.
Enter the archives staff. It's their job to
catalogue, preserve and make this material available for reuse or
rebroadcast - to programmers inside the CBC and to broadcasters,
filmmakers and other institutions across Canada and around the world.
It wasn't always this way. In the CBC's early
years archives were not a priority, as few people thought the items
would have long-term value. Then slowly, that began to change. People
realized the material's worth. New technologies made production
cheaper and storage easier. Computer systems made it possible to
track, manage and provide ready-access to the collection.
Today, CBC Archives have come into their own.
And Canadians are that much richer for it. Take your own virtual
visit of CBC Archives:
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