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[[underlined]] Future Year Prospectus [[/underlined]]

[[underlined]] Office of Telecommunications [[/underlined]].  Through films, video and radio programs the Office of Telecommunications continues to reach a variety of audiences across the country.  The Office is constantly monitoring new developments in the media and is exploring a number of possible projects for cable, home video, videodisc, teleconferencing, and low-power television.  At the same time it is building on the current base of films and ongoing radio programs to create new materials for both commercial and public broadcasting.  The consolidation in this Office of film and television personnel now located in the Institution will strengthen its capacity to serve the Smithsonian.

Under a grant from the McDonnell Foundation, the Smithsonian, in conjunction with WETA-TV, is developing a major series for public TV to be called [[underlined]] Smithsonian World [[/underlined]].  Preliminary planning will be completed in the fall of 1982, and the first of seven one-hour programs to be produced under the grant is expected to air in early 1984.

The Office's new series of video featurettes, [[underlined]] Here at the Smithsonian [[/underlined]], was launched in 1982, and is already meeting with enthusiastic response.  Patterned on the highly successful [[underlined]] Smithsonian Galaxy [[/underlined]] radio programs, the series is seen now on 40 stations nationwide.  [[underlined]] Smithsonian Galaxy [[/underlined]], meanwhile, won a Gold Medal at the International Radio Festival of New York, in a competition that included more than 750 entries.

Radio Smithsonian, the Institution's weekly half-hour series, continued its strong showing among public radio stations around the country, and also added new commercial stations to its subscriber list.  Staff members developed special radio programs apart from [[underlined]] Radio Smithsonian [[/underlined]], including an evocative commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown and a well-received series of live Smithsonian concert broadcasts, distributed via the National Public Radio satellite system.  The success of these efforts encourages the planning of more such programs in the future.  These would include a number of discrete series, beginning with one on the history of country music (based on the Smithsonian album), and a program marking the bicentennial of the Treaty of Paris--the true birth of American independence--in 1983.

In 1982 the Office completed the film [[underlined]] In Open Air: A Portrait of the American Impressionists [[/underlined]], which toured Europe with a major exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.  Scheduled for a national PBS showing in the fall of 1982, the film received high praise abroad and won a Bronze CINDY award in a competition sponsored by the Independent Film Producers of America.  Several film projects are now in development for the future.  In conjunction with SITES, the Office is working toward a film on American artists of the '20s and '30s, another