Restoring The Archives

There were many reasons why television programmes were junked, wiped or unrecorded but the underlying reason is the philosophy that TV was ephemeral and DID NOT NEED TO BE KEPT. This was still the prevailing opinion 30 years ago when large amounts of wiping took place at the BBC and some Independent UK TV companies. Broadcasts in colour started on BBC in 1967 and ITV in 1969. By the early 1970s colour broadcasting was the norm rather than the exception (the BBC's Forsyte Saga in 1967 was the last major production to be made in b/w). Expensive colour sets flew out of the shops and the home audience delighted in this extra dimension to their viewing. The coming of colour of course didn't mean that TV companies would cease to broadcast old b/w movies but television itself never enjoyed the same kudos as film and in most quarters it was decided that the days of b/w television was over. It was argued that viewers who had shelled out good money for new colour sets wouldn't want to watch old b/w shows on them. Thus it was believed that many of the b/w recordings kept by the BBC had outlived their usefulness. Also there were the union rules (Equity, Musicians Union and the Writer's Guild) which only allowed a certain number of transmissions within a certain time period before (often costly) contract renegotiation had to take place. Although many foreign broadcasters were still transmitting (and interested in) b/w programming, much of the material had deemed to have reached its full sales potential and was looked upon as redundant. These factors, allied to the costs of storage, resulted in the decision to junk huge numbers of telerecordings (and where material was held on video) and wipe and re-use tapes. This practice was common to most companies although the BBC demolition (from 1972) caused the worst casualties. At the BBC the policy was to contact the original producers of the material to be junked to make sure they had no objections to the destruction. In practice it seems that this didn't always happen, there are many examples of producers who claim they weren't contacted (or perhaps were on holiday when approached or had left the Corporation). Those that did give their permission were obviously as unaware as their masters of the future value (both commercially and culturally) of such material,

Financial inducement has always driven the television companies to keep some of their output. As more countries around the world started television services so, British broadcasters found a secondary market for their wares and some filmed and telerecorded material would be sold for re-transniission abroad. When the home video market demonstrated the potential of selling programmes on tape, the companies were very quick to respond - and it was really only then that they began to realise the enormous worth of the material that had been wiped, junked or just never recorded. Too late. But, to be honest, not as bad as it could have been. Despite the many items lost, the BBC was in fact aware of the importance of keeping some of their output for posterity and from the late 1950s/early 1960s many outstanding programmes and often at least one episode example of a series, were kept. Granada Television likewise had a very coherent archiving policy, witness the fact that every episode of Coronation Street survives and its early years continue to make money for the company. And since the late 1970s, almost everything transmitted survives - at least when it comes to whole programmes; it's still difficult to find examples of continuity links, weather reports and the like from that period. But this is a vast improvement. There has also been some remarkable recoveries.

It was probably the obsessive fans of Dr Who who first demonstrated that if you looked hard enough for something it just might turn up where you didn't expect to find it. Undaunted by the fact that episodes were absent from the BBC archives, the fans started searching elsewhere: perhaps foreign TV companies that may have shown the series and not junked or returned their copies as requested; or in the hands of the shows old producers and directors who may have kept copies; possibly mis-filed in the BBC's own archive; maybe even in the hands of private collectors who had rescued the shows from being junked. With a few of the supposedly, missing episodes of Dr Who turning up, it alerted archivists to the probability that other such items may be out there. TV companies as well were involved in the hunt, a more enlightened archiving policy and the re-sale potential of material, firing their enthusiasm.

In 1993, in response to this raid for the lost archives, the British Film Institute launched Missing - Believed Wiped, an initiative designed to form a focus for such activities. To this end they released a list of twenty key missing programmes, that could just possibly exist somewhere. That list - and the expanation for the entries is reproduced below. In the years that Missing - Believed Wiped has been operating some marvellous material has been returned to the National Film And Television Archive (a copy of the found material is made and the original is returned to the donor). Highlights include a 1960s appearance of Woody Allen, performing some of his stand-up routine (and fighting a boxing kangaroo!); missing episodes of Monty Python forerunner At Last The 1948 Show: episodes of Z Cars, Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part; and material featuring Tony Hancock, Terry-Thomas and Adam Faith. Finds have been unearthed by TV companies, private collectors, fan-clubs and foreign broadcasters sorting through their own archives. Material has been found in garages, lofts, cellars, under beds and on one memorable occasion in a Mormon church.

But there's also a lot of material that is rumoured to be around that hasn't been returned. Episodes of A For Andromeda, the Beatles on Juke Box Jury, missing Dr Whos are all items that are persistently claimed to exist - and supposedly change hands between collectors - but which haven't officially resurfaced. It's not hard to understand why collectors don't want to return items - in their world such material is curTency, rarely being passed on for money but often used for bartering. Also there is no reward for returning material, as obviously copyright and ownership remains with the prograrnme makers. Thus some collectors feel cheated if they return material out of the kindness of their hearts, only to have the TV companies make seemingly huge amounts of money by reshowing the items, or selling them abroad or on video. (This is particularly true of Dr Who, a programme in demand on traditional and satellite and cable television as well as on video). Then there the feeling of superiority that some collectors get knowing that they have something that nobody else has. Despite that, there are still quite a few collectors who altruistically return material to the public domain getting their kudos from the fact that they found something that nobody else could.

Somewhere out there lurks a lot more of the lost heritage of British Television. The BBC launched Treasure Hunt in 200 1. This was a highly publicized amnesty requesting the return of missing BBC material. As with the initial MBW launch, response was good and a few important items (episodes of Dad's Army and Till Death Us Do part) was returned. Also the heightened interest in such material alerted several enthusiasts to the fact that a lot of UK material was held in foreign archives. It is these foreign archives that would appear to be the most lucrative areas to look for lost material. Our colleague Mike Mashon at the Library of Congress has already turned up two missing Rediffusion drams from the 1960s. He will search his archive for more material. Sue Malden on behalf of the BBC and I (for the BFI) would like to ask all FIAT members who have pre- 1980 British television material in their archives to contact us to discover if it is missing. To start the groundwork, I have compiled Missing Believed Wiped, a BFI book which tells the story of Britain's lost TV heritage and lists the most important missing items. Order forms for the book are included in your delegates pack.

Thank you for your time.

Some further Information

The early technical difficulties associated with the recording of live television programmes and the later injudicious wiping and junking policies of the major British broadcasters has meant that hundreds of thousands of hours of precious television material is missing from the official U.K. television archives. Nowadays such decisions to destroy vast stockpiles of programming is seen as scandalous, cultural vandalism on a grand scale, but, as explained later, there were mitigating circumstances - reasons that certainly seemed logical at the time. With hindsight it's easy to point the figure and badmouth the industry personnel responsible for such woeful destruction but the story of Missing, Believed Wiped is that of a treasure hunt rather than a witch hunt. It's of little use lamenting what went on, it's impossible to undo what has been done. A far better idea is try and reclaim as much of the missing material as possible. Hence, Missing, Believed Wiped.

The BFI's initiative was launched in 1993 (and was inspired by Missing, Believed Lost an earlier bfi quest for some classic British movies) but the story of returning programmes goes back far further. By the early 1980s TV companies began to realise the folly of their earherjunking policies and started making efforts to track down some items they had wiped or destroyed. Their best hopes were with the foreign archives which may hw7e held onto copies of programmes dumped by the U.K. broadcasters. These were by no mean co-ordinated efforts more individual initiatives from various archive personnel. Such activity may have been prompted by the outrage of Dr Who fans upon realising just how many episodes of their favourite series had been junked (nearly 150!), or perhaps by the news items that had been sparked by the revelation (by Peter Cook?) that much of his classic Not Only... But Also was missing from the archives. Certainly the burgeoning home video market may have also spurred some investigations as it became increasingly obvious that such archive programming could be worth considerable amounts of money.

So, the recovery of programmes was well underway before the Missing, Believed Wiped (MBW) initiative (which itself followed an earlier BFI venture Missing, Believed Lost, an attempt to highlights and track down some British films absent from the archives). The MBW launch meant that for the first time the search for missing programmes could be co-ordinated under one single umbrella. Broadcasting companies were somewhat lin-Ated in their ability to search out programmes, many collectors or foreign archives which held lost material were reluctant to admit it to the copyright owning broadcasters for fear of prosecution. Such fears may have been mostly unfounded but certain high-profile prosecutions in the collecting area did little to alleviate the tense atmosphere. By acting as a go-between, the BFI would find it easier to approach (and be approached) by those with something to hand back. The MBW initiative also came with a promise that any returned material would be copied and the original (or if preferable a best possible quality VHS copy) would be returned to the donor. The broadcasting companies would find it difficult to make such a promise as the properties in question were of course wholly owned by them. Although it was known that archivists would arrange (fairly unofficially) for some swap deals to be made on returned material (from private collectors), it was not an ideal relationship, whereas the BFI's involvement meant there was a better way of negotiating. This didn't mean that individual broadcasters ceased seeking out material but it did mean that new avenues of contact were opened.

Missing, Believed Wiped launched to the press with a list of the 'top 20' missing programmes (a list put together by the BFI's MBW team which attempted to cover various genres: comedy, drama, documentary, music, news etc.). This generated quite a lot of media interest and kick-started the initiative. By the time we organised the first MBW screening (at the NFr) we had already been contacted by a number of individuals who, responding to the media coverage, thought they might be in possession of missing programmes. It was thought essential to follow-up on the most intriguing items and to that end I was employed (under a part-time six month contract) to investigate further. This resulted in some significant recoveries (see the MBW event history). This initial follow-up period was important because we had so much respc-i7,se from the first wave of publicity. In subsequent years the flow has been more restrained allowing follow-up procedures to be carried out by National Film and Television Archive (NFIVA) staff as part of their normal work.

The message remains the same: if you think you are in possession of British television material missing from the official archives please contact: Steve Bryant, Keeper of Television at 21 Stephen St., London WIT ILN (e-mail: steve.bryant@bfi.org.uk) or me, Dick Fiddy at the National Film Theatre, South bank, London SE I 8XT (e-mail: dick.fiddy@bfi.org.uk)

Hopefully this book will be out of date almost as soon as it's published as more items are returned to the archives.

Dick Fiddy, London September 2001