MEDIA
“ I worked at Fenway Park, did the World Series in 1967 [ and ] Celtics games, mostly as a camera operator,” he says.
In the early 2000s, many regional and local broadcast stations— as well as institutions like Emerson— were offloading their outdated equipment. A group of eight industry veterans, including Beck and former ABC engineer Tom Sprague, pooled their resources to establish a museum. Sprague, the group’ s treasurer, purchased the former bank building and donated its use to the organization. Since then, the collection has continued to grow as members rescue obsolete equipment from studios and backyards across the country.
“ One came from Indiana in a chicken coop,” Beck says.“[ The previous owner ] didn’ t want to get rid of this, so he put it in his chicken coop.”
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“ The video production industry itself has changed so much in the past ten years. Today, a single person with a laptop and an iPhone is the equivalent of what people used to pay $ 15,000 a day for.”
— Paul Buck, museum president and curator
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Today, the museum is open by appointment and encompasses more than fifty years of TV and radio history. In addition to cameras, visitors can explore a recreated 1942 radio station, vintage tape recorders, studio memorabilia and equipment bearing the logos of companies like ABC, NBC and RCA. An annual open house during the city’ s Main Street Holiday Stroll draws close to 300 visitors every year, all of them eager to see themselves on camera at the mock TV studio.
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