looking for lost tv via your local paper this Xmas

[Rich Cornock]

its occured to me that as people will soon be going up into their lofts to get their Xmas decorations that now maybe a good time to put out an appeal for missing episodes.
while its great that the TV companies (and others) have been running recovery campaigns i see no reason why members of this forum shouldn't have a go themselves at tracking down missing tv via their local press.

i myself am considering trying to get a letter published in my local paper about TV recovery and was wondering if members of this forum would like to contribute to its content. i intend to appeal to members of the public to contact me if they have any old TV recordings, i think the letter should give details about how TV programs came to be missing and what we are now looking for ie early home video recordings and tapes.
suggestions of details are welcome.

hopefully my letter may bring some responses as i aim to act as a local go between for any recovery's. if i get anything interesting i will report back here. i would hope the other members of this forum would join me in doing something similar in their local press. All to often we talk about missing TV but do very little to find any, so hopefully this will set the ball rolling for new finds

[Greg H]

Best of luck mate.
Keep us posted about how it goes. Even if you dont find anything, it will be interesting to hear what sort of a response you get.

[Rich Cornock]

thanks. its just an experiment. maybe a waste of time but at least its something to do for the xmas holidays!

[B Thomas]

One may say that any success from this exercise is a rather optimistic idea but it is, at least, a positive approach.

It's reassuring to think that some people are comfortable with the middle-ground approach and keeping away from pessimistic cynicism and over-optimistic dreaming.

A suggested quick look at home is certainly better than doing nothing and costs little to pursue...

[Adrian Gregg]

Yeh that's what Ive been advocating for at least 20 odd years now.
small local searches with local "rags" Its ALWAYS been a good Idea. although the amount of people who have done it in the past 20 years is always very small. gawd knows why. Ive heard literally 1000's of people "gonna do it" and never. so good luck mate and i hope you follow though.

Ive put add's in about 5 different newspapers and "trading post" type things in the past. mainly in the 90's, it was well written and didn't specify any program as being more "lost" than another. IE i wasn't heading the article with "Help Me Find Missing Dr Who" I wrote about many missing programs from tv AND radio.
I got loads (about 3000+ calls) each time I did it, but alas most people thought that a VHS tape from before they could remember (about 5-15 years) would be rare and have missing programs on it. so I delt for the main part with people and their VHS collections which of course yielded nothing but re-run movies and American sitcoms from the 80's.(and the odd open reel which had again US movies on em) and loads of "TS versions" of non missing BBC Comedy. I was kinda hoping someone had dubbed an open reel or acetate down to cassete. but no. all the radio were from the 70's airings and all "common as muck" Ts copies. a few open reel audio's of TS programs but nothing vaguely missing. and pretty much all were missing any continuity!! so i could recover any of that.
Even managed to see quite a bit of film, but all of it was Educational "school board" type stuff, or again Non missing US kines or Features.
I diddnt try it again as the net was starting to take off in the mid 90's and there were forums to ask questions on..
one of my first finds via the net was about 6 odd 4th series Goon Shows. I asked those at Alt.Fans.Goons If anyone had any old copies of goon shows etc. and via that i located a major chunk of missing Goons.

Then A bit later i was On radio and attempted the same, and got to see more non missing videotape.
In both of these experiences I leant how to write my "copy", It needed to be "tight" and pretty specific about the recording mediums which could yield these gems. (and yet.. not disregarding that someone may have copied a sony CV tape to vhs at one point and the same with Audio cassets)

Ive heard of people putting out requests in newspapers in Australia before i did and even spoke to one guy who did it in the mid 80's. He said he saw a awful lot of "alf garnet" shows but no who. This of course crushed my hopes for finding anything for a bit. as this guy had seen in his words "loads of tatty 60's comedy" but being no who fan he couldn't care less. and get this, he was the one annoyed!

I really thing we should be trying to locate more CV2000 type tapes, Hey I bought a pile from ebay so there are heaps about.
I have an interesting article on the building of a "home video recorder" from 1965 , uses quarter inch tape (although at 150IPS) but one 10 inch reel of tripleplay will hold 35 or more mins)

I could provide scans etc. the article is bloody fascinating too. it ends with the chap detailing on how he's watching a BBC Tv program hours after the bdcast with no objectionable loss in quality. yep its 1965. and it didn't cost much to make.. (hence the "mad boffin" recording the moon landing, space pirates) I don't think he was mad at all I think he built one of these !!..


If you want my help just ask more than happy to assist,

Ade Gregg

[Richard Bignell]

Dec 4, 2008 3:10:51 GMT Adrian Gregg said:

(hence the "mad boffin" recording the moon landing, space pirates) I don't think he was mad at all I think he built one of these !!..

The person you're thinking of was using commercial videotape recorders - the CV2000, the CV2100 and finally Shibaden. The only home built thing he used was a tape splitter so that he could cut whatever magentic tape he could lay his hands on down to the right size!

Richard

[Adrian Gregg]

Thanks Richard, That's once piece of the puzzle I never knew, I always thought It might have been one of these. well at least since i saw Steve's original post about 10 odd years ago.

A home made cutter! I built one of these in the late 80's so i could (try) to use standard video tape in a quater inch tape deck.
guess what the tape was.. A offair ABC TV Hancock epp taped in '85. I heard the audio on the VT while running it though a full track tape deck!



Im starting a new thread about this unit now!

I know that the "top end" of these tapes may have "dropped off" making any sync impossible but I live in hope

[Richard Bignell]

Dec 4, 2008 9:23:32 GMT Adrian Gregg said:

Thanks Richard, That's once piece of the puzzle I never knew, I always thought It might have been one of these. well at least since i saw Steve's original post about 10 odd years ago.

The article is actually on this very site, Ade! ;D

www.btinternet.com/~m.brown1/boffin.htm

Richard

[Adrian Gregg]

Thats the one, I think i may have seen it elsewhere, eiler, could be wrong. oh yes it glaringly states what deck he had.. ok silly me. So I take it no one has come across any Quater inch tapes with weird "low pitch" wines on them then?
Have a look at the article. although it "simplifies" the process of telerecording and the Tech knowledge needed, It still fascinates me that someone built one!.. I have 1000's of Australian mags of the same vintage which state similar things about "tele Recordings on VT" Ok about 10 mags have article about various US and UK companies trying to make a "home unit" one even has a photo of a model that's built in to the top of the TV. Most of the aust mags are quite adamant that a technological marvel could and would not work, and then tear the thing (technically) to pieces (even though they hadn't seen one) They make quite compelling arguments to the "non existence" of such a beast.!!

[Rich Cornock]

ok here goes....
this is my first draft of a letter i hope to get published in my local paper. its not meant to be too detailed as it has to appeal to the general public and also short enough to get printed. what do you think? i am happy to receive constructive criticism on this as i can change it before i email it off to the newspaper.
As i said earlier this is nothing more than an experiment and not meant to be some huge search. just a guy having a go


letter to the editor
Over the xmas break Gazette readers may watch quite a few repeats of classic TV shows from the past, what they may not realise is that while a lot of early TV programs exist in the archives many programs were not kept and are no longer available to view. Up until the early 1980’s TV companies routinely wiped programs once they had been broadcast and reused to tapes or just discarded the recording thinking they had no further use. In more recent times the cultural value of vintage television has become appreciated and there has been a concerted effort to recover missing programs by TV companies and other parties. Lost programs have been recovered from ex TV station employees, garden sheds and from home recordings made by the public. As someone interested in the recovery of lost TV I am coordinating a search in this area for ‘lost’ TV and am asking the Gazette readers if they can help. I would be interested in hearing from any readers who have television recording they made before 1980. If the material turns out to be missing I then hope to get digital copies made and returned to the archives for future generations to enjoy. Please contact me at.

[Eric Lawton]

Thats a good idea Rich.
Its so basic and simple, it may work.
I did something similar asking for radio stuff, and had an incredible response.
Be prepared for the "scoffers" though..................theres plenty of the buggers about.
Lets be honest, if you get just ONE response and its a positive one, then itll be worth it.

Good luck Mate.

Eric.

[Gary Critcher]

yes indeedy, more power to your elbow! Keep us informed of any results.

[Koen Br]

Dec 6, 2008 11:59:33 GMT Rich Cornock said:

letter to the editor
Over the xmas break Gazette readers may watch quite a few repeats of classic TV shows from the past, what they may not realise is that while a lot of early TV programs exist in the archives many programs were not kept and are no longer available to view. Up until the early 1980’s TV companies routinely wiped programs once they had been broadcast and reused to tapes or just discarded the recording thinking they had no further use. In more recent times the cultural value of vintage television has become appreciated and there has been a concerted effort to recover missing programs by TV companies and other parties. Lost programs have been recovered from ex TV station employees, garden sheds and from home recordings made by the public. As someone interested in the recovery of lost TV I am coordinating a search in this area for ‘lost’ TV and am asking the Gazette readers if they can help. I would be interested in hearing from any readers who have television recording they made before 1980. If the material turns out to be missing I then hope to get digital copies made and returned to the archives for future generations to enjoy. Please contact me at.

As someone who has done a traineeship at a newspaper, I would seriously advise you to put the most important information (i.e. you're looking for pre-1980 television people may have at home) at the very beginning of your letter, as people frequently just read the first couple of words or sentences.

There's been some research into this, and generally speaking very few articles are being read from the first to the last sillable.

Frankly speaking I'd be pleasantly surprised if an editor would consider lost TV important enough to print a letter about it, but let's be positive. We've had colour recovery, some missing Hancock and Dad's Army, all over the last couple of weeks... We may be on a winning streak!

[Rich Cornock]

ok i have now emailed a copy of my letter to the editor of my local paper (see below) The paper is printed every Thursday so with luck if it is printed it will come out just before or after the MISSING BELIEVED WIPED program is broadcast on BBC2 which should help. i have left the letter more or less alone despite what Koen said as i felt it was necessary to give the reader a broad picture of what the hunt for lost TV was about. As ive said before this is all a shot in the dark but i felt it worth a go as i think there could be quite a lot of missing tv on old home recording that have yet to be discovered. However i think recovery from home recordings is on borrowed time, items already on the collectors circuit maybe out of peoples reach but at least they are being cared for. Home recordings will however eventually probably be binned as people pass away or move house.
Anyway we shall see if any thing turns up, I probably be offered 100s of episodes of minder on VHS!



letter to the editor
Over the Xmas break Gazette readers may watch quite a few repeats of classic TV shows from the past, what they may not realise is that while a lot of early TV programs exist in the archives many programs were not kept and are no longer available to view. Up until the early 1980’s TV companies routinely wiped programs once they had been broadcast and reused the tapes or just discarded the recordings thinking they had no further use. For example, of the hundreds of Top Of The Pops broadcast during the 1960’s and early 70s’ only a handle full survive in the BBC archives. In more recent times the cultural value of vintage television has become appreciated and there has been a concerted effort to recover missing programs by TV companies and other parties. Lost programs have been recovered from ex TV station employees, garden sheds and from home recordings made by the public. As someone interested in the recovery of these programs I am coordinating a search in this area for ‘lost’ TV and am asking the Gazette readers if they can help. I would be interested in hearing from any readers who have television recording they made before 1980 or who have original BBC or ITV 16mm & 35mm films. If the material turns out to be missing I then hope to get digital copies made and returned to the archives for future generations to enjoy. Please contact Rich at

[Joe Haynes]

If anyone can write an article about missing TV then i would be happy to put it on my website