Bruce DuMont, Founder of Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications, Retires

By Meha Ahmad, Tony Sarabia
Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, looks over an early 1950’s Zenith entertainment center featuring radio, turntable and television on June 13, 1987 in Chicago. The set is one of many on display at the newly-opened museum which is dedicated to preserving and promoting everything from decades old radio programs to 10 o’clock news. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell)
Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, looks over an early 1950’s Zenith entertainment center featuring radio, turntable and television on June 13, 1987 in Chicago. The set is one of many on display at the newly-opened museum which is dedicated to preserving and promoting everything from decades old radio programs to 10 o’clock news. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell)
Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, looks over an early 1950’s Zenith entertainment center featuring radio, turntable and television on June 13, 1987 in Chicago. The set is one of many on display at the newly-opened museum which is dedicated to preserving and promoting everything from decades old radio programs to 10 o’clock news. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell)
Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, looks over an early 1950’s Zenith entertainment center featuring radio, turntable and television on June 13, 1987 in Chicago. The set is one of many on display at the newly-opened museum which is dedicated to preserving and promoting everything from decades old radio programs to 10 o’clock news. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell)

Bruce DuMont, Founder of Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications, Retires

By Meha Ahmad, Tony Sarabia
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Chicago’s list of museums and cultural institutions is as varied as the city’s neighborhoods. We have places that showcase science and natural history, Mexican art and art produced by war veterans, to the venerable Art Institute of Chicago. There’s one museum that celebrates the history and development of television and radio, not only in Chicago but around the country. 

The Museum of Broadcast Communications was the brainchild of longtime journalist and broadcaster Bruce DuMont. But after helping to shepherd the museum from its former home in the halls of the Chicago Cultural Center to a its own building on north State St., DuMont is retiring from the institution. 

Morning Shift talks with DuMont about his start in broadcasting, his one and only run for political office, and why Chicago seems like a natural fit for a museum focusing on television and radio.