Four generations of John Mileys. Photo courtesy of John Miley.
The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) selected WFIU/WTIU News’s Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection as the winner of the best of competition in the short-form documentary category in the BEA Festival of Media Arts adjunct faculty and staff documentary competition.
BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. The BEA Festival of Media Arts award winners were selected from 2,285 entries, representing over 300 colleges and universities in the following competitions: audio, documentary, film and video, interactive multimedia, news, scriptwriting, sports, and two-year colleges.
Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection explores the sports broadcast collection of 93-year-old John Miley. He began making recordings in 1947, while he was a high school student. Nearly eight decades later, his collection now includes more than 44,000 recordings of radio and TV sports broadcasts—the largest archive in the country.
Miley’s extensive collection includes every Super Bowl, a half-century of the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500 races, the World Series games from 1954 to the present, and more. Historical highlights of Miley’s archive feature the Brooklyn Dodgers’ final game; the heavyweight title fights between Joe Louis and Billy Conn; Roger Maris’s 61st home run in 1961; and the fourth quarter of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance in 1962. Miley also has the play-by-plays of famous sportscasters, such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Ted Husing, Harry Caray, Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, and Bill Stern.
The documentary follows Miley on his search for a permanent home for the collection after he passes away. Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection reveals how Miley came to the decision to donate his entire archive to the National Sports Journalism Center at the Indiana University Media School. The program looks at the Media School’s plans for digitization to make the collection available as a resource for students and the public.
Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection is available to stream for free on the PBS app. The program is made possible with support from IU Credit Union. Learn more at wtiu.org/archivingairwaves.