Crossroads Lost Episodes Since 1988

[Mark Brown]

From www.crossroadsnetwork.co.uk

Quote from: "MikeGne"
...that we know of.

Yes, a mystery is going on.. just when you thought it couldn't get any worse with the ATV wiping - since 1988 there are a number of episodes that have done a vanishing act.

So far:

1973 - ITC branded episode 1885 (between the two on Archive vol 1.1)

1975 - 2300 - the one before the wedding

1977 - 2814 and 2815 and maybe one or two more, that needs checking.

Of course thats just the ones we know of

Quote from: "MikeGne"
I have noted 2867 is with BFI, but was one of a number of episodes that wasn't put onto D2 so isn't at ITV.

There are several others, I think this has been posted on another forum anyway about the episodes. So someone will know more.

Its quite an episode, as it is the Maureen hit and run.

Quote from: "MikeGne"
Well I don't know I was given a list recently that said it was at the BFI.

The problem had been six or seven tapes had gone there, but were not logged at the BFI or at ITV in the computer database I assume.

Some sort of paper list was found with the details on of all the Quads that was given to the BFI, and the BFI found the tapes a few weeks ago.

The list had: 2867 TX 22.12.77

As well as: 3008, 3409, 3555, 3556, 3557, 3558 and 3560.

If thats the case why its not on the DVD I have no idea.

Episodes cover from 1977 to 1981.

1885 and 1887 TX 29.03.73 / 03.04.73 - originally a complete ITC recorded week of episodes, all of which were shown at a CAS (Crossroads Appreciation Society) event in Ross On Wye in 1989. Last used on television by the BBC in 1991 on the Noele Gordon Tribute programme. Clips from the lost episodes mixed with the two surviving editions have been used on Open The Box (Channel 4 / BFI production) and Crossroads Revisited (Central for ITV) in 1986 and 1985 respectively.

It is thought that the two lost episodes were copied onto 1" Videotape along with the remaining two for the Channel 4 programme (as the episodes - including one of the lost ones is seen being played on a 1" machine within the show) and may have been labeled as a dub, which has since been re-used in error. This however doesn't explain why two of the episodes were kept on film and two were not.

Again I uploaded clips of the black and white episodes for ITV staff to take a look at - the real reason we got 1.1 released because ITV only took it seriously after the clips were uploaded and we suggested they check the ITC film library after Network missed of the B&W episodes from Volume Four. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgfZJZAIaME

2867 TX 22.12.77 - which was at the BFI was missed off Volume Seven. This is quite a significant episode as its one of Vera Downends last episodes.

2300 TX 01.04.75 - directly before Meg and Hugh's wedding. Survives on awful LP VHS. ITV were sent this copy from CAS.

2814 and 2815 TX 22.09.77 / 23.09.77 - racist storyline. Part of episode 2815 has been uploaded to You Tube to prove it was released by CAS. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbdTa92IJo

any ideas?

[cperry]

I can hopefully address some of this.

The 2" Crossroads held by Granada International were transferred and returned to them so Network can access any of them to release.

Editions gifted to the BFi in years earlier were not part of this deal and Network would have to pay time to have those copied. So I would suggest that Network did not want to pay those extra costs so they were excluded.

I know for a fact that Crossroads ended up split, and Central retained a lot of episodes that sat in Nottingham. These were accessed by CAS and members/Tv production depts for assorted documentaries. They have never been reunited with their colleagues held by Granada International so a good 50+ editions are sitting in Leeds held by a different archive. Network can't easily get to them they are stuck in a demarcation dispute between different parts of ITV. I know because we can't get to Central material either for the same reason. If it's in Leeds it can't be accessed by ATV staff or vice versa.

Simply put this material is in the wrong locations so Network can't get to it.

Network could only get to this material by paying extra costs and they can't afford that on the budgets available for these Crossroads releases.

I hope that helps.


c

[Deleted]

What years are these 50+ episodes from, Chris? Are they b/w, colour or a mix of different eras? Any more from the '60s in there?

I see too that the BFI have one episode listed in their catalogue from about June 1969 - is this one known to definitely exist or a cataloguing error?

[Mike Garrett]

There are several episodes Carlton copied to a modern format which now have through some careless staff mobile phone interference signals on the 'master copy' - I'm surprised with ITV being the copyright holder it would be difficult for them to call back the problem tapes to re-do the copy.

The ITC episodes are quite a mystery. (The missing two black and white ones from the same week the surviving two have been released from.)

In the BFI documentary on Crossroads one of these episodes is being seen fastwarded on a 1" tape player. So at least one of them was dubbed over for the BFI. There was a suggestion that this may have been marked up as a copy and was wiped, but that doesn't explain the disappearance of the film spool.

The other one was last used in 1991 by the BBC in the Noele Gordon TV Hero's programme - ITV did contact the BBC for copyright information on the clips, but the only details contained for all the BBC clips is they were from ITC Entertainment with no episode information or which actual archive they were from.

Edit: I should add all the CAS obtained material came from Broad Street Central TV (despite at the time ITC being the actual 'owners') so why 2300 for example should be parted from 2301 in a copyright issue in the Carlton and beyond era is interesting!

[Mike Garrett]

For update sake, another now missing ITC episode to add to the list. From 1974, the Meg and Sheila episode (just the two of them) where Sheila gives birth to Susan on the Harvey's sitting room floor.

Another which had a club screening, and also I'm told (I've not seen) a clip was featured on Jane Rossington's This Is Your Life.

Its all very strange, it seems 'a lot' of ITC Film has gone missing - and of course while there might be the calls "its only a cheap daytime soap" it does beg the question to what other ITC film-kept material has since gone missing since circa 1997.

[Deleted]

Would 1997 have been the point at which Carlton bought the ITC / ATV archive from Polygram, Mike? I know Polygram have a terrible reputation for looking after the archive and also junking stuff. Could the pruning have happened at this point to make the archive "leaner / more saleable" (allegedly)? I'd guess there could be a lot more ITC prints of various things out there somewhere.

[Mike Garrett]

I know the VT remained with Central TV. The ITC film may not have as when you look to after ATV the majority of old clips of Crossroads in programmes come from the film archive, so that does indicate that Polygram had those.

1997 seems to be the year of a lot of TV ditching, so its possible it was a Carlton or Polygram issue. I know Carlton threw away the photographs and that is fact; Central gave the fan club some cases of stills (in 1997) which last year ITV asked for copies of - due to the new ITV Archive having little in the way of ATV material. (The TV Times has also filled some gaps there.)

I don't have any contact details for these people, and I don't really know if these recently lost things are something KAL/BFI are that interested in finding out more on. But I know the ITC archive was managed by Joh Keeble and the archive was supervised by Margaret Duerden.

And on the issue of BFI episodes, one that was at the BFI has been released episode 3008 (not copied by Carlton before handed over for some reason) - so its likely the others listed at the BFI which haven't been released are maybe documents only?

[gileshill]

Apr 21, 2009 12:23:56 GMT @cperry said:

I can hopefully address some of this.

The 2" Crossroads held by Granada International were transferred and returned to them so Network can access any of them to release.

Editions gifted to the BFi in years earlier were not part of this deal and Network would have to pay time to have those copied. So I would suggest that Network did not want to pay those extra costs so they were excluded.

I know for a fact that Crossroads ended up split, and Central retained a lot of episodes that sat in Nottingham. These were accessed by CAS and members/Tv production depts for assorted documentaries. They have never been reunited with their colleagues held by Granada International so a good 50+ editions are sitting in Leeds held by a different archive. Network can't easily get to them they are stuck in a demarcation dispute between different parts of ITV. I know because we can't get to Central material either for the same reason. If it's in Leeds it can't be accessed by ATV staff or vice versa.

Simply put this material is in the wrong locations so Network can't get to it.

Network could only get to this material by paying extra costs and they can't afford that on the budgets available for these Crossroads releases.

I hope that helps.


c

Hello Christopher.

Can you explain why the two old parts of ITV are still behaving as separate companies? I thought they had merged fully a while ago. Also, how come Granada International have any episodes? Surely the 50 "hostages" went ATV>Central>Carlton and the other ATV episodes went ATV>ITC>Polygram>Cartlon. Why should Granada International have access to one part of Carlton's archive, but not the other? The world of the TV business is certainly a strange one so I'm glad to just be a fan!

Thanks in advance, and keep up the good work at Kaleidoscope!

[Mike Garrett]

Yes I find that curious too. I did have a few contacts at ITV Leeds where the D2 versions are kept. (Until ITV dropped so many earlier this year) I know they could just search the database and it would tell you what was there. They also could access the ITC film information from London and have anything sent to YTV if they wanted.

Maybe this issue has finally been resolved? As the ITN Archive, which did just list Granada owned programmes/companies now also has the Carlton archive added too.

I don't really envy anyone who tries to workout these archives and what is where and what has gone more recently. ITV suggested that it would be easier to 'forget it' than try and find out what happened with ITC. So as stated above its great there is Kaleidoscope who have put a lot of the mess into some order - especially where Crossroads is concerned.

[Deleted]

I too am always bemused that, although the archive is now supposedly centralised, the different branches seem to still be retaining their past identities to a degree! Some material still seems not to have appeared on any database either so more discoveries could occur, I guess.

I was also puzzled by the non-appearance of a Crossroads episode from June 1969 on the DVD sets. This one was listed in the BFI's holdings catalogue although it doesn't seem to have been located so far. I wonder if it was ever in the archive or just a data error? Anyone know what the content of said edition would have been?

[cperry]

Hi people

The ITV Archive is still kept in different places but it is now under a central access point, but the records are vary sparse.

New digibeta transfers were given new barcode access numbers and if you know those you can find anything but often things such as the old VTR number was not recorded on the new systems, and that's the info we often have. So shows without ep titles are very hard to track down.

A lot of ATV/ITC film is still waiting to be input on the system and I'm guessing some of your Crossroads telerecordings will be in that pile.

Most of the stuff that seems to have gone missing seems to have been at Broad Street at one point, and that material was supposed to have gone to Nottingham, then to Perivale, then to Leeds. Now working on the equation that 1% of a collectiojn can get lost in transit. That's 4 % of an archive of several million items that could have been misfiled or mislaid, ie several thousand items.

Personally it's more likely it was left at
a) left at Broad Street and skipped
or
b) left at Broad Street and given to a University collection (there are several). We have checked this route and no Crossroads show up.
or
c) moved to Nottingham and mislaid
or
d) master tape sent to BBC and never returned, a very common occurence.

c

[Mike Garrett]

Thanks thats really interesting. It does give some hope that if there is items still to be sorted then the other film episodes may be around.

It would be great to find out who worked on what, but because we're talking 20 years its difficult. We did try with ITV to get the 'programme as broadcast' information on BBC shows featuring these ITC clips but they didn't say where the clips had come from. The biggest clue is the BFI programme Open The Box which as we say screens on a screen one of the black and white 1973 episodes from part one to end of part one. (in fast forward) its however on a 1" tape.

I suppose I'll have to hope that Central/Carlton didn't ditch any film, as far as I know they didn't go through with their 'cost cutting' film destruction as what was deemed un-important financially, yet important historically, went to MACE.

[gileshill]

Thanks for answers Chris.

Thanks too to Mike for the update on ITN Source which now even lists things like Hardwicke House! Maybe they'll let us buy copies? Unfortunately I think they made a mistake with the HTV childrens programmes, which don't list King of the Castle and Sky but do list Georgian House. It also lists Raven (not the BBC one) which is meant to be missing.