The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF) is pleased to announce the winner of its 2017 Broadcast Historian Award to Terry Likes, Tennessee State University for a series of audio documentaries he produced for the Tennessee Radio Network’s “Tennessee Matters” with Likes’ segments focusing on “Media Matters.” Likes’ reports examined the historical impact of TV late night hosts, how TV catch phrases and theme songs have become part of our every day life and how the music of the Beatles changed American music forever.
“While the program highlighted some Tennessee connections, the content was universally appealing to listeners from anywhere,” commented one of the reviewers. “The wealth of sound clips were skillfully employed to represent the substantial cultural influence of broadcasting in a unique way. That influence came from late-night television talk hosts to TV catch phrases to theme songs and Beatles music.”
LABF will award Likes a $5,000 check at the Broadcast Education Association’s annual convention (BEA2017) in Las Vegas on Monday, April 24. Ginny Morris of Hubbard Broadcasting and current Chair of the Foundation; Joyce Tudryn of IRTS and also a LABF Board member and W. Lawrence Patrick, Managing Partner of both Patrick Communications and Legend Communications, a media brokerage and radio group owner respectively, will represent LABF and award Likes the check at BEA2017. “LABF supports BEA members in their scholarly endeavors,” said W. Lawrence Patrick. “We applaud their dedication to creative scholarship and appreciate the good relationship between BEA and LABF.”
The LABF supports a broadcast archive housed at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. Likes has graciously agreed to donate copies of the documentaries to the archives.
In 2015 LABF and BEA partnered to establish the annual Broadcast Historian Award. With the support of LABF, BEA will annually award $5,000 to an educator who has published or produced work specifically related to broadcast history. The award will be given to an author of a book or a producer of a documentary/multimedia project in alternating years. A call for the 2018 Broadcast Historian Award, for a book, will be available this summer.
