SHSND Home Archives Archives Holdings Film & Video Television & News Film
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Archives - Television & News Film

Audiovisual materials include motion picture film and video tape including an estimated 5 million feet of 16mm motion picture film, approximately 3.5 million feet of which was acquired from North Dakota television stations covering the period 1953-2000. The film collection includes the Holmboe Collection, the John Hanson Collection, the Bill Snyder Collection,the North Dakota News Film Collection, several individual and family collections (both amateur and professional), and other film and video from a variety of sources.

The largest portion of the Television and News Film and Video Archives consists of television news film and video produced by six stations (three broadcasting companies) and an independent news program (the North Dakota Farmers Union “Focus on the News”) between 1953, when television first came to the state, and 2001.

10351 WDAY-TV (Fargo, ND)
1953-1978
Television news broadcast scripts, broadcast schedules, correspondence and approximately 1.5 million feet of WDAY-TV and WDAZ-TV news film. (12ft)

10352 KXJB-TV
1964-2001
Consists of news broadcast scripts, correspondence, photographs, publications concerning the 1964 National Plowing Contest, and children's drawings on pollution. Includes film and videotape footage of news stories from the start of the station until 2001. May 17, 2013 accession consists of 78 BETA tapes from 2002-2004. Tapes contain news stories from around the region. Significant topics include George W. Bush’s visit to Fargo, North Dakota National Guard deployment to Iraq, and Dru Sjodin. (digitized)  Inventory for all KXJB film and videotapes is available in Film and Video database. (166.75ft)

10464 Dennis Neumann
1976- 
Notes, news releases, letters, schedules, KFYR-TV news broadcast scripts, memoranda, and printed material relating to the 1976 North Dakota - Mideast Trade Mission; sound recordings, audiocassette tapes, and video cassettes. (12ft.)

10646 KTHI-TV (Fargo, ND)
1972-2008
Consists of mainly 3/4" videotapes and shot sheets of file tapes from 1989-1999 of the Fargo and surrounding Red River Valley. File tapes include both national and regional stories on topics like the 1997 Red River Flood, Jeanna North, elections, weather stories, accidents, Michael Damron, and other news worthy topics.  Also in the collection are various topic tapes like Leonard Peltier, Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus, telethons, Senator Obama visits Fargo, President Bill Clinton in Grand Forks,  abortion, Kyle Bell, and North Dakota tourism.  (183 ft.)

10736 KXMB TV (Bismarck, ND)
1981-2009
Footage includes news segments, sports, and features. Reporters include Mike Chaussee and Donnell Preskey. Also inlcuded in accession is a VHS featuring two segments on a researcher who visited the Museum Division to study the stuffed ferrets. (101 ft.).
KXMB first went on the air on November 19, 1955 as KBMB-TV, owned by John Boler (Fargo) and the North Dakota Broadcasting Company. In 1959, Chester Reiten (Minot) bought part of the North Dakota Broadcasting Company. The station changed its name from KBMB to KXMB in 1959. KXMB-TV switched from analog signal to digital in May 2009. Reiten Television sold the station to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group in September 2015. The station is a CBS affliliate.

10890 Community Access Television
1995-2003
Video recordings of the North Dakota State Legislature. (375 tapes )

10960 Keith Darnay
1978-1989
Programs produced by Darnay on ¾” video while station manager of the KMOT in Minot and the KX station in Bismarck.  (30 ft.)

10983 Meyer Broadcasting
1953-2013
Consists of completed segments, raw footage, and full length programs produced by the various Meyer Broadcasting stations. The news film covers many social, political, and current event topics from central and western North Dakota. Collection includes a half a million feet of 16mm film, and over 1,500 videotapes.
In 1953, KFYR-TV was the third television station to go on air in North Dakota. From the 1950s until the 1990s, Meyer Broadcasting was owned and operated by P. J. and Etta (Hoskins) Meyer and their daughter Marietta and her husband William Ekberg. In the late 1950s, Meyer Broadcasting began managing three satellite stations - KMOT (Minot), KUMV (Williston), and KQCD (Dickinson). In the 1970s, the station moved away from film and utilized videotape. The Ekberg family decided to sell the television company in the late 1990s. Since then, the company has been purchased three times. In 2009, the stations switched from analog to digital. Notable Meyer Broadcasting news personalities include Jack Swenson, Doug Anderson, I. E. Solberg (Esky the Weather Wizard), Dick Heidt, Jerry Bartz, Rog Higgins, Dennis Neumann, Al Gustin, Cliff Naylor, Monica Hannan, Lee Timmerman, Alan Miller, Kevin Lawrence, and many others.

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