Local TV Legacy Initiative (LTLI):

A joint initiative between APA & Channel US

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The Project

The Local TV Legacy Initiative (LTLI) is a national movement dedicated to preserving American local television news—past, present, and future—and ensuring the public’s right to access it as a historical record. 

We believe local news is vital civic infrastructure, and like any bridge or school building, it must be actively maintained or it deteriorates and disappears. Local TV news captures the texture of daily community life unlike any other medium, and the people it covers deserve enduring access to how their stories are told — because understanding the past is essential for meeting the future.

 

The Problem

Local TV news is vanishing as cultural heritage on two fronts:

• On the ground: Media is regularly discarded, equipment is obsolete, original formats are deteriorating, and stations lack knowledge of their holdings.

• Systemically: Corporate consolidation, shrinking budgets, and high licensing costs have created "history deserts"—communities cut off from their own past.

News organizations exist to report, not to preserve. Yet, what they produce is too valuable to be discarded or languish unmarked boxes. A fundamental tension persists between the cultural and monetary value of these materials—and until now, no institution has systematically stepped up to mediate it.

 

What We Do

LTLI is the bridge. We broker partnerships between news organizations, libraries, archives, and local communities to build preservation plans and advocate for public access. We treat differing institutional priorities as a starting point for collaboration, not a barrier. We aren't here to threaten anyone's bottom line; we are here to stop the loss, unite people around a shared love of history, and serve as a scalable laboratory for archive access.

 

Our Five Goals

1. Engage funders, policymakers, and institutional leaders.

2. Build a national network to rescue at-risk local news collections.

3. Partner with media corporations to unlock their archival holdings.

4. Ensure today's local news is being preserved for tomorrow.

5. Connect researchers, educators, and the public to local news archives.

 

Yesterday's broadcast is tomorrow's history. LTLI exists to make sure it survives the distance.