Question about junking of episodes

[David Zientara]

I just got the "Doctor Who: Lost In Time" DVD set in the mail yesterday, and I have to say that even though I already have several of the episodes (years ago I bought "Cybermen: The Early Years" and "The Patrick Troughton Years"), this set was well worth the money, if for no other reason than the inclusion of "The Lion" and "The Daleks' Master Plan" episodes. I watched the documentary on the missing episodes, and from what I gather, the rationale behind junking, as articulated by Pam Nash and others at the BBC, went something like this:

1. With the advent of color-only broadcasting in the U.K. (don't know when ITV went color, but I think BBC-2 went color in 1967, and BBC-1 in 1970), nobody's interested in old black-and-white shows;

2. In any, case, episodes can only be rerun once, per the agreement with the actors' union;

3. There is limited interest in these shows overseas (here they may have had a point - there are some shows that are considered classic in the U.K. that you can get on DVD in the U.K. but not the U.S.), so there's really not much commercial value here;

4. The BBC is not required to maintain an archive, and it has to worry about black and red ink; therefore

5. The episodes should be junked.

The argument that "nobody's interested in black-and-white stuff" was a specious argument even in the 1970's; I'm old enough to remember what was on TV back then, and I don't think I remember a time when some local station or another wasn't airing reruns of "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy". But even assuming that we accept this logic unquestioningly, it doesn't explain why they junked 64 of the 128 Pertwee episodes! Can anyone explain this one?

Also, the argument that the commercial potential was limited seems to be undermined by the fact that Time-Life was offering the first two seasons of Pertwee in 1972 (when every episode except Master Plan 7 still existed), and such episodes found their way onto American and Canadian TV stations. Even though it wasn't much of a success, wouldn't even this limited commercial potential justify saving the episodes? [Keep in mind that even before it was offered to the U.S.A, "Doctor Who" was sold to several - mostly Commonwealth - countries.]

Anyhow, my apologies if these issues have already been bandied about. Just my $0.02.

[Ash Stewart]

One thing to bear in mind is that there were two aspects to the "junkings";

1 - the wiping of the original *videotapes*. This was done by the engineering department, and had nothing to do with BBC Enterprises (Where Pamela Nash worked).

2 - the junking of the BBC Enterprises 16mm telerecordings.

Each was independent of the other. BBC Enterprises, for example, never junked a single colour Pertwee. All they had were the B&W telerecordings. These were wiped by the engineering dept.

[David Zientara]

ash said:

One thing to bear in mind is that there were two aspects to the "junkings";

1 - the wiping of the original *videotapes*. This was done by the engineering department, and had nothing to do with BBC Enterprises (Where Pamela Nash worked).

2 - the junking of the BBC Enterprises 16mm telerecordings.

Each was independent of the other. BBC Enterprises, for example, never junked a single colour Pertwee. All they had were the B&W telerecordings. These were wiped by the engineering dept.

Fair enough, but my understanding is that at the time (1960's/1970's), videotape was quite expensive and was therefore wiped and re-used on a regular basis. Therefore, shouldn't the person who OKed the junking of the 16mm telerecordings have been acting under the assumption that the telerecordings may very well have been the only copies the BBC had? Or would that have been asking too much, since apparently, at the time nobody at the BBC was responsible for making sure archival material wasn't destroyed?

[Brad Phipps]

David said:

Therefore, shouldn't the person who OKed the junking of the 16mm telerecordings have been acting under the assumption that the telerecordings may very well have been the only copies the BBC had? Or would that have been asking too much, since apparently, at the time nobody at the BBC was responsible for making sure archival material wasn't destroyed?

You're assuming they cared about what they were junking. I erase footage all the time here at my work. I don't really think about someone, 26 years in the future, complaining that I should've thought about what I'm doing historically.

(Naturally I'd be more careful if I was junking something a little more important than months old news rushes)

[David Zientara]

Brad said:

You're assuming they cared about what they were junking. I erase footage all the time here at my work. I don't really think about someone, 26 years in the future, complaining that I should've thought about what I'm doing historically.

(Naturally I'd be more careful if I was junking something a little more important than months old news rushes)

If that's the case, then it pretty much answers my question. Still, if there was anything even remotely pragmatic that informed the junking process, one would think that the fact that the BBC had sold old episodes to multiple countries in the 1960's, and in addition had sold the first two seasons of Pertwee to the U.S. and Canada would cause them to exercise discretion with respect to junking of old "Doctor Who" episodes.

[Laurence Piper]

I would like to think so, yes. But the more you discover, the more you realise that "archival policy" was not at all deliberate or selective. It was totally casual, random, lacking in any logic - and at the mercy of individuals. At that time, the left arm didn't seem to be aware of what the right arm was doing. The blind leading the blind, in fact.

[Richard Bignell]

David said:

Still, if there was anything even remotely pragmatic that informed the junking process, one would think that the fact that the BBC had sold old episodes to multiple countries in the 1960's, and in addition had sold the first two seasons of Pertwee to the U.S. and Canada would cause them to exercise discretion with respect to junking of old "Doctor Who" episodes.

But as far as BBC Enterprises was concerned, the market for the b/w material had been exhausted. Sales were healthy for the Hartnell material, but by the end of the Troughton stories, hardly any overseas stations were taking them. The first two points in your original post are moot as Enterprises had no concern (in terms of programme sales) over what happened in the UK - their interest was selling to other countries. As far as the US was concerned, they had absolutely no interest in taking anything other than the colour stories. As well as that, the contracts with the writers to sell their b/w stories overseas were all expiring and would need to be reestablished.

You also have to remember that BBC Enterprises was (is) a business and they only had limited space in their film vaults. There was no economic advantage as far as they were concerned in holding onto material that no one was buying anymore, especially when the Corporation was producing many other programmes that people were buying! No business considers it viable to keep dead stock in their warehouse!

It's also important to realise that the film prints/negatives that BBC Enterprises had were their own property, bought and paid for, and as such they could do with them what they liked. There was no requirement for them to ask the rest of the BBC before they destroyed their old material. If the BBC as a whole deemed it worthwhile to keep certain old programmes, then they were kept. However regretful it may be, they clearly didn't feel that way about Doctor Who.

Richard

[David Zientara]

What I'm really surprised about, though, is some of the other material that was destroyed. That the BBC didn't forsee that the Hartnell/Troughton episodes would be marketable someday is forgiveable. But episodes of "Not Only...But Also"? It might have done them some good if they devised a few simple rules for junking, and a good rule may have been, "Under no circumstances is anyone to destroy the only copy of anything with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in it," because even in 1972 I think their status as comic geniuses was pretty well cemented. "Z Cars" and some of the other material I could see junking (although I don't agree with it), since their appeal was mainly domestic, and had limited value because of the limitation on reruns.

[Stuart Douglas]

David said:

What I'm really surprised about, though, is some of the other material that was destroyed. That the BBC didn't forsee that the Hartnell/Troughton episodes would be marketable someday is forgiveable. But episodes of "Not Only...But Also"? It might have done them some good if they devised a few simple rules for junking, and a good rule may have been, "Under no circumstances is anyone to destroy the only copy of anything with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in it," because even in 1972 I think their status as comic geniuses was pretty well cemented. "Z Cars" and some of the other material I could see junking (although I don't agree with it), since their appeal was mainly domestic, and had limited value because of the limitation on reruns.

I suspect the BBC failed to envisage a time when *any* old black and white TV would be terribly marketable.

And, in commercial terms only, they'd probably have been wrong to keep 'NOBA' since the recent Pete 'n' Dud DVD release hardly set the world on fire.

In fact, keeping another episode of Who would probably have made them more money in the long run.

Stuart

[Adam James Smith]

the BBC best of Cook and Moore DVD didn't set the world on fire because it was a straight cheapo transfer of a ten plus year old compilation released without any promotion or care. The equivalent of budget label Gerry and the pacemakers compilation CD.
If they'd spent time putting together a well-promoted new DVD that did the series justice it would've sold very well., i would think.

[Stuart Douglas]

Adam said:

the BBC best of Cook and Moore DVD didn't set the world on fire because it was a straight cheapo transfer of a ten plus year old compilation released without any promotion or care. The equivalent of budget label Gerry and the pacemakers compilation CD.
If they'd spent time putting together a well-promoted new DVD that did the series justice it would've sold very well., i would think.

I'd love to think so, but I really can't see *any* Pete 'n' Dud release selling as much Doctor Who.

Actually, I thought the Pete 'n' Dud DVD was OK - decent picture quality and some interesting interviews. Full shows would have been better, but as an intro I thought it worked quite well.

Stuart

[Brian D not logged in]

I would really like to have the international perspective on junking policy. Does anybody know if the television stations in Europe (I omit America in this as their commercial set up and time-zoning meant that much less was junked) have lost as much as we have?

[Adam James Smith]

stuartdouglas said:

Adam said:

the BBC best of Cook and Moore DVD didn't set the world on fire because it was a straight cheapo transfer of a ten plus year old compilation released without any promotion or care. The equivalent of budget label Gerry and the pacemakers compilation CD.
If they'd spent time putting together a well-promoted new DVD that did the series justice it would've sold very well., i would think.

I'd love to think so, but I really can't see *any* Pete 'n' Dud release selling as much Doctor Who.

Actually, I thought the Pete 'n' Dud DVD was OK - decent picture quality and some interesting interviews. Full shows would have been better, but as an intro I thought it worked quite well.

Stuart

ah- you're talking about the ITV "Goodbye again" best of: I was referring to the BBC comp: a muhc better release could've been put togethe rof BBC material, not least the 1966 Christmas special.
The "Goodbye Again" comp was actually given a reasonable amount of promotion, (with a special on TV and all) but I still thought the package itself was a bit second rate: a tacky cover and very odd editing let it down, not to mention that I think that series was hardly their best work anyway: the colour filmed sketches look beautiful but they're all totally unfunny. (the B/W studio stuff is better)

[William Martin]

in the late 60's/early 70's peter cook asked the bbc to keep their NOBA shows, but the beeb said it would cost too much and they needed to be reused he even offered to buy the tapes from the bbc so they could replace them but no they would take up too much room and other endless excuses.

[markoates]

The argument that "nobody's interested in black-and-white stuff" was a specious argument even in the 1970's; I'm old enough to remember what was on TV back then, and I don't think I remember a time when some local station or another wasn't airing reruns of "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy". But even assuming that we accept this logic unquestioningly, it doesn't explain why they junked 64 of the 128 Pertwee episodes! Can anyone explain this one?

You're judging the BBC by the standards of North American tv networks. There has always been a big anti-repeat culture with British television. I'm not entirely sure if "The Honeymooners" was screened in its entirety on British television, and if it was then like the Lucy shows it was only screened once. Doctor Who only occasionally saw repeat screenings in the 1980s, so in the 1970s when the Purge was going on, the older shows would only have been shown on their original telecast and then been put on the shelf. Film recordings, as previous posters have stated, were made for international sales, but the original VTs would have only been available for internal BBC research use. If nobody ever checked the tapes out, the Engineering department would have reclaimed them after a while and wiped them for re-use.

There has always been a completely different repeat culture in the US, entirely down to Syndication, which doesn't exist in the UK broadcasting model. Combine that with the fact most US shows such as The Honeymooners or Lucy were made on 35mm film rather than videotape and you have a system that makes retention and rebroadcast of materials both easy and desirable.

Just my twopennethworth.