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Post by mickconnolly on Jul 8, 2014 18:08:24 GMT
I hope that I am not going over old ground but I found this article in an August 79 edition of the TV Times. It seems that the Beeb were'nt very helpful then, as now.  |
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Post by John Green on Jul 8, 2014 19:52:15 GMT
Nice one,Mick.
Mind you,they're a bit off with saying that programmes in the 50s couldn't be recorded because of the high cost of videotape and the fact that many were broadcast live.
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Post by mickconnolly on Jul 5, 2015 23:08:39 GMT
A readers letter from the TV Times in January 1971. It seems that there was concern over tape wiping way back then.  |
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Post by John Green on Jul 5, 2015 23:19:10 GMT
Thanks,Mick.Do you have any follow-ups to the question "If it was up to you which ITV programmes would you preserve for,,,the 21st century"?.
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Post by John Green on Jul 5, 2015 23:22:54 GMT
I hope that I am not going over old ground but I found this article in an August 79 edition of the TV Times. It seems that the Beeb were'nt very helpful then, as now. View Attachment They're of the opinion that live programmes couldn't be recorded off a monitor. |
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Post by mickconnolly on Jul 6, 2015 0:35:50 GMT
Afraid not John. I checked up until July of that year but no follow up letters on that subject.
The usual moans about too much sex and violence, etc.
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Post by williammcgregor on Jul 6, 2015 6:48:55 GMT
Hi Mick,
Thanks for posting those very interesting articles from the TV Times
what a foresighted letter from W.S.Cook (to think that it was from 1971!) if only he or she had been in charge of the TV archive then we might not have been in the sorry mess as we are today?
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Post by robchapman on Jul 6, 2015 8:16:24 GMT
Again, this might be old ground but I've recently been reading Mark Lewisons biography of Benny Hill, and in that he mentions that when Hill moved to ITV in the late sixties the BBC was so incensed that it paid him his repeat fee for his last BBC series, didn't reshow them out of spite and then wiped them.
And didn't Peter Cook offer to buy Not Only But Also back off the Beeb when they were going to be wiped but they refused.
Its all cultural vandalism isn't it?
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Post by Nathan Dickel on Jul 19, 2016 3:23:11 GMT
Again, this might be old ground but I've recently been reading Mark Lewisons biography of Benny Hill, and in that he mentions that when Hill moved to ITV in the late sixties the BBC was so incensed that it paid him his repeat fee for his last BBC series, didn't reshow them out of spite and then wiped them. That very well could be the only ever case of deliberate wiping! |
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Post by Peter Stirling on Jul 19, 2016 22:49:42 GMT
Again, this might be old ground but I've recently been reading Mark Lewisons biography of Benny Hill, and in that he mentions that when Hill moved to ITV in the late sixties the BBC was so incensed that it paid him his repeat fee for his last BBC series, didn't reshow them out of spite and then wiped them. And didn't Peter Cook offer to buy Not Only But Also back off the Beeb when they were going to be wiped but they refused. Its all cultural vandalism isn't it? Not forgetting this was nearly the fate of Monty Python after it's last series, the whole lot was going against the magnet until a smallish TV station in Florida started showing interest .The BBC had so little faith in it that it sold the US rights to the Pythons for a peppercorn fee. |
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Post by Richard Marple on Jul 20, 2016 12:26:50 GMT
Wasn't there a legal battle about re-rediting a best of compilation to showcase the series?
One of the Pythons managed to get domestic copies "back-doored" by a VT engineer.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,861
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Post by RWels on Jul 21, 2016 8:18:50 GMT
Again, this might be old ground but I've recently been reading Mark Lewisons biography of Benny Hill, and in that he mentions that when Hill moved to ITV in the late sixties the BBC was so incensed that it paid him his repeat fee for his last BBC series, didn't reshow them out of spite and then wiped them. That very well could be the only ever case of deliberate wiping! But is it actually true, or just a good story? I'm undecided on this. Same for the Cook anecdote. How would the price of one of those tapes compare to his salary back then? |
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Post by Peter Stirling on Jul 21, 2016 9:00:28 GMT
That very well could be the only ever case of deliberate wiping! But is it actually true, or just a good story? I'm undecided on this. Same for the Cook anecdote. How would the price of one of those tapes compare to his salary back then? The cost of tapes was going down year upon year also the BBC had no official archive for tapes until around 1977.The fate of a programme until then was largely left to the whims of an individual in whoever's path the tape crossed, these individuals moved on and someone else would find these tapes in their cupboard and the mind set of the day was that these tapes represented the past- yesterday's newspaper been and gone- they were their to make their own programmes not store somebody elses' that had already seen it's moment of glory. |
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Post by Nick Cooper on Jul 21, 2016 14:33:39 GMT
Again, this might be old ground but I've recently been reading Mark Lewisons biography of Benny Hill, and in that he mentions that when Hill moved to ITV in the late sixties the BBC was so incensed that it paid him his repeat fee for his last BBC series, didn't reshow them out of spite and then wiped them. Or they were routinely wiped once they were out of time, as was perfectly normally? If Lewisohn genuinely makes that claim, he's either ignorant of archiving practice at the time, or being dishonest. |
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Post by robchapman on Jul 22, 2016 9:26:22 GMT
I don't know if Lewison is ignorant or dishonest but he is a good researcher. I'm not over enamoured with him as a writer (and despite writing a doorstop of a book about Benny Hill he has a spectacularly tin ear for comedy) but if you want to find Ringo Starr's ex-dustman he's your man. Peter Cook told the Not Only But Also story several times over the years and if you know anything at all about his chaotic life you'll know that 'salary' was never uppermost in his thoughts. As for 'archiving practice' well like 'archiving policy' there wasn't one simple procedure was there? In my occasional access to the BBC archive over the years I've always been surprised to see which entertainment shows have been preserved en masse from the 1960s/early 70s. Almost every Ken Dodd/Rolf Harris (uh-oh) and Nana Mouskouri show for instance has been kept. So its not just about the simple expediency of storage space and costly tape is it? Other criteria must be at play. Someone must decide at some point that the Beatles on Juke Box Jury or Huff Puff Junction isn't worth keeping but the New Generation dancing on the Lulu show is. Go figure.
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