Sounds of Radio Fading at UCLA Archive : Media: Archivist says his pleas to save preservation effort have been tuned out by a university more concerned with films and television.

Several radio buffs who already feel that not enough respect and attention is paid to old-time radio now fear that their wishes to save what they call a valuable historic radio resource is falling on deaf ears.

Starting today, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which specializes in the preservation and research of visual media, is temporarily discontinuing the development of its radio archive, which has been developed and nurtured over the past 13 years by Ronald Staley, a fan and collector of old radio programs.

The shutdown is mostly academic, since the archive has never been open to the public. But plans to further develop the archive have been put off for at least three years.

Although university officials say they hope someday to open the radio archive for research, Staley and others have doubts about whether it will ever be resurrected.

“I’ve always felt that radio has been given short shrift, and this proves it,” said Staley, 43. “I’ve built this over 13 years of my life. My one concern is what is going to happen to these materials.”

He fears that the 50,000 old-fashioned aluminum, acetate-coated radio disks that were used by studios to play programs over the airwaves, and the archive’s more than 10,000 tapes of radio from 1933 to 1983 will deteriorate if not properly cared for during the archive’s inactivity.

UCLA officials said budget cutbacks and the importance of the film and television portion of the archive prompted the move.

“The money is tightening, and, in terms of our priorities, we find television and film preservation to be more pressing at this point,” said Geoff Stier, assistant to the director of the archive. “We have highly developed activities in those areas. Film is deteriorating, and can’t wait.”

Operating and developing the archive costs about $50,000 a year, Stier said, adding that the long-term cost is much higher.

“In order to continue and develop the archive, we would have to have fund-raising activities that would take lots of staff time, and we would need hundreds of thousands of dollars to properly make the archive accessible,” he said.

The archive is housed in a vault in the old Technicolor complex at Santa Monica and Cahuenga boulevards. Highlights range from 1940s productions of “Hallmark Playhouse” programs featuring Ronald Reagan, Deborah Kerr and Ann Blyth to Edward R. Murrow reports of the Korean War and the Germans bombing England. Also in the collection are shows by Jack Benny, “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “This Is Your FBI” and numerous variety shows.

Staley said that UCLA had repeatedly resisted his requests to make the archives public, and to bring in equipment that would make the shows, news programs and other material available for general research.

“I have appealed to the university, but have been tuned out,” Staley said. “They would rather devote more resources to film and television.”

Stier stressed that the shutdown was not permanent. “We are fully committed to bringing the archives back and making them accessible when we can find a way to do it,” he said. “But we have to find out the best way to do that. We would like to be able to develop it as a complement to the film and television archive.”

But Staley and other radio buffs aren’t so sure.

Don Aston, a collector who has donated several hundred discs and tapes to the archive, said he was disturbed by the shutdown. “I think it’s a tragedy,” he said. “The shortsightedness of the UCLA people is incredible. Most of your old-time movie stars came from radio--Lionel Barrymore, Alan Ladd, William Conrad. They should see the tie between movies and radio. But they’re just not interested.”

Another donor of material, Michael Dorrough, said that he tried five years ago to build a studio at the archive that would allow some of the old discs to be transcribed onto tape. But the facility was dismantled without warning or explanation, he said.

“It’s so stupid what they’re doing,” Dorrough said. “It’s the most wonderful library, probably the best around. I’m really scared everything’s just going to get stacked and squeezed, and that will not do it any good. It angers me.”