Museum of Broadcast Communications

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The Museum of Broadcast Communications (or MBC) is located in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform, and entertain through our archives, public programs, screenings, exhibits, publications and online access to our resources." It is home to the nation’s only Radio Hall of Fame.

The museum opened in Chicago's South Loop in 1987, and from 1992 to 2003 was located in the Chicago Cultural Center. The museum is slated to reopen in a new 70,000 square foot (7,000 m²) facility on State and Kinzie Streets, adjacent to Harry Caray's Restaurant and the House of Blues Hotel, just north of the Chicago Loop. The new museum building has undergone several delays in its development due to a fiscal stalemate with the State of Illinois. It was originally scheduled to open in Spring 2005 and later in 2009, but its half-completed building was recently slated to be sold due to lack of funds, which CEO Bruce Dumont blames on lack of state funds and the economic downturn.

The unfinished new museum building in May, 2009

According to the museum's web site, in 2003, the Museum was Chicago's fourteenth most visited cultural destination with over 200,000 visitors.

The museum will honor NBC 5 Chicago's Warner Saunders on May 16, 2009 at a fundraiser called "A Salute to Warner Saunders."

[edit] Encyclopedia of Television

The MBC maintains an on-line resource called "The Encyclopedia of Television" [1]. This includes original essays relating to historic moments and trends, major policy disputes and such topics as violence, tabloid television and the quiz show scandal. It also includes histories of major television networks as well as broadcasting systems around the world and is complemented by resource materials, photos and bibliographical information.

[edit] The Great Debate and Beyond

Chicago played host to the first presidential debate on television. The debate between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy took place September 26, 1960, at WBBM-TV's former studios on McClurg Court. In the words of historian Theodore White, "American politics has never been the same since." The MBC has created an interactive, multimedia online exhibition celebrating this long relationship called The "Great Debate and Beyond: The History of Televised Presidential Debates" [2].