WFAA-TV first broadcast in North Texas on September 17, 1949 as KBTV. In 1950 Channel 8’s call letters changed to WFAA and the station became an ABC affiliate. For 75 years WFAA has covered local news, world events, and provided original programming such as Peppermint Place, PM Magazine, and Good Morning Texas.
In 2010, Belo donated its corporate archive to DeGolyer Library. This vast collection contains records of the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, WFAA-TV, and WFAA Radio. The WFAA-TV collection includes administrative files, employee newsletters, photographs, correspondence, and scrapbooks donated by former employees.
The G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at SMU is the home of WFAA’s 16mm-film news archive. This collection includes films that “capture the people of Dallas living and working as the city grew around them. The stories contribute to the history of Dallas and represent the things that mattered to residents during those two decades.”
Researchers can access a finding aid for the WFAA-TV collection in DeGolyer Library. Please contact degolyer@smu.edu for questions about this collection.
The WFAA Newsfilm Collection, located in the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, is available at https://www.smu.edu/libraries/digitalcollections/wfaa.