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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 11:24:51 GMT
It would be interesting to know about places like Hungary - Yugoslavia, of course, no longer exists. Just as interesting though. I suppose the successor would be in Serbia, possibly Croatia. But really one would have to know in which part of Yugoslavia they were shown. The troubling thing is, if they say "no we don't have it", then that still doesn't rule out that it's there in some form, undigitised and uncatalogued. Is it vaguely possible that there’s another Jos in the Balkans? I don’t know the answer to that.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 14, 2021 11:53:59 GMT
Just as interesting though. I suppose the successor would be in Serbia, possibly Croatia. But really one would have to know in which part of Yugoslavia they were shown. The troubling thing is, if they say "no we don't have it", then that still doesn't rule out that it's there in some form, undigitised and uncatalogued. Is it vaguely possible that there’s another Jos in the Balkans? I don’t know the answer to that. It was much less end of the line there. As with other countries they will have returned the prints or destroyed them. Tons of now-lost BBC programs were shown in Holland and Scandinavia, but nothing significant was found that way (except perhaps some "1948 show" material). Still, there's the 0.5 % chance...
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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 12:10:24 GMT
Is it vaguely possible that there’s another Jos in the Balkans? I don’t know the answer to that. It was much less end of the line there. As with other countries they will have returned the prints or destroyed them. Tons of now-lost BBC programs were shown in Holland and Scandinavia, but nothing significant was found that way (except perhaps some "1948 show" material). Still, there's the 0.5 % chance... What seemed to happen with Enemy/Web was that by the mid 70s Auntie was primarily selling colour shows and had basically lost interest in b&w material.
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Post by richardwoods on Oct 14, 2021 12:18:06 GMT
Just as interesting though. I suppose the successor would be in Serbia, possibly Croatia. But really one would have to know in which part of Yugoslavia they were shown. The troubling thing is, if they say "no we don't have it", then that still doesn't rule out that it's there in some form, undigitised and uncatalogued. Is it vaguely possible that there’s another Jos in the Balkans? I don’t know the answer to that. More likely to be another Sierra Leone sadly.
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Post by RossL on Oct 14, 2021 12:53:00 GMT
If anything of uk archive interest was at the state RTS station in Belgrade its almost certainly gone - the building was bombed by NATO during the Balkan war in 1999. You can see the dasmage for yourself here www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKO17mkJUU
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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 13:08:48 GMT
If anything of uk archive interest was at the state RTS station in Belgrade its almost certainly gone - the building was bombed by NATO during the Balkan war in 1999. You can see the dasmage for yourself here www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKO17mkJUUAnother dead end crossed off the list.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 14, 2021 15:16:34 GMT
More likely, none of these places had kept foreign programs. And it's not so strange if you think about it. How many thousands of episodes of cheap American series would they all be stuck with? I imagine that Sweden, Finland, and Yugoslavia got rid of the copies just like it usually went almost every time.
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Post by richardwoods on Oct 14, 2021 16:02:53 GMT
More likely, none of these places had kept foreign programs. And it's not so strange if you think about it. How many thousands of episodes of cheap American series would they all be stuck with? I imagine that Sweden, Finland, and Yugoslavia got rid of the copies just like it usually went almost every time. Of course it’s the “almost” bit is what makes life interesting.
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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 16:25:34 GMT
It’s worth noting that Auntie, effectively, used foreign TV stations to store prints - that’s what came out of the discovery of the bicycling system.
In some cases prints were sent on pretty quickly as another broadcaster had paid to show them, but it wasn’t unknown for them to sit on a shelf for a long time. Three things could then happen. The prints could either be ordered to be destroyed or returned to London or they could be ordered to be sent to another broadcaster.
There was almost certainly the mother of all filing systems at Enterprises that logged where every print - and not just Dr Who - was. If a foreign broadcaster bought the rights to show something the file would be checked to see where the prints were and either a telegram or telex would be sent instructing the print(s) to be sent on.
This system would’ve “known” that, for example Enemy and Web were in Nigeria and also identify whether instructions had been issued to return or destroy them. However, as it would’ve been paper based it wouldn’t have been possible to “ask” which prints were still out there, i.e., no instructions had been issued.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 14, 2021 17:04:25 GMT
Indeed, I found two exceptions: "Two of a kind", (non-BBC) many 16mm copies for some reason stayed with a continental broadcaster. "Pit you wits", BBC quiz show, two episodes exist in the same country. The latter were officially missing. I've asked Swedish, German, and Romanian stations several times - they always reply in the negative. It’s worth noting that Auntie, effectively, used foreign TV stations to store prints - that’s what came out of the discovery of the bicycling system. In some cases prints were sent on pretty quickly as another broadcaster had paid to show them, but it wasn’t unknown for them to sit on a shelf for a long time. Three things could then happen. The prints could either be ordered to be destroyed or returned to London or they could be ordered to be sent to another broadcaster. There was almost certainly the mother of all filing systems at Enterprises that logged where every print - and not just Dr Who - was. If a foreign broadcaster bought the rights to show something the file would be checked to see where the prints were and either a telegram or telex would be sent instructing the print(s) to be sent on. This system would’ve “known” that, for example Enemy and Web were in Nigeria and also identify whether instructions had been issued to return or destroy them. However, as it would’ve been paper based it wouldn’t have been possible to “ask” which prints were still out there, i.e., no instructions had been issued. But no system fully captures reality, and, even for that other sixties BBC sci-fi program, it sometimes says "ultimate fate unknown".
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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 17:15:09 GMT
Indeed, I found two exceptions: "Two of a kind", (non-BBC) many 16mm copies for some reason stayed with a continental broadcaster. "Pit you wits", BBC quiz show, two episodes exist in the same country. The latter were officially missing. I've asked Swedish, German, and Romanian stations several times - they always reply in the negative. It’s worth noting that Auntie, effectively, used foreign TV stations to store prints - that’s what came out of the discovery of the bicycling system. In some cases prints were sent on pretty quickly as another broadcaster had paid to show them, but it wasn’t unknown for them to sit on a shelf for a long time. Three things could then happen. The prints could either be ordered to be destroyed or returned to London or they could be ordered to be sent to another broadcaster. There was almost certainly the mother of all filing systems at Enterprises that logged where every print - and not just Dr Who - was. If a foreign broadcaster bought the rights to show something the file would be checked to see where the prints were and either a telegram or telex would be sent instructing the print(s) to be sent on. This system would’ve “known” that, for example Enemy and Web were in Nigeria and also identify whether instructions had been issued to return or destroy them. However, as it would’ve been paper based it wouldn’t have been possible to “ask” which prints were still out there, i.e., no instructions had been issued. But no system fully captures reality, and, even for that other sixties BBC sci-fi program, it sometimes says "ultimate fate unknown". We are missing a lot of the original records - had the filing system survived we’d be much wiser.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 14, 2021 19:16:49 GMT
Indeed, I found two exceptions: "Two of a kind", (non-BBC) many 16mm copies for some reason stayed with a continental broadcaster. "Pit you wits", BBC quiz show, two episodes exist in the same country. The latter were officially missing. I've asked Swedish, German, and Romanian stations several times - they always reply in the negative.But no system fully captures reality, and, even for that other sixties BBC sci-fi program, it sometimes says "ultimate fate unknown". We are missing a lot of the original records - had the filing system survived we’d be much wiser. So now we should start a search for the filing system!
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Post by John Wall on Oct 14, 2021 21:15:53 GMT
We are missing a lot of the original records - had the filing system survived we’d be much wiser. So now we should start a search for the filing system! Remember that things like DW and OOTU were but a very small part of a very large operation. It must’ve been a sight to behold, racks and racks of drawers full of cards. For something like OOTU there might have been a card for each print struck which would record its movements, etc, etc. Nowadays it’d all be on a computer. I imagine it all went into a skip decades ago - but had it survived….
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 15, 2021 9:17:44 GMT
So now we should start a search for the filing system! Remember that things like DW and OOTU were but a very small part of a very large operation. It must’ve been a sight to behold, racks and racks of drawers full of cards. For something like OOTU there might have been a card for each print struck which would record its movements, etc, etc. Nowadays it’d all be on a computer. I imagine it all went into a skip decades ago - but had it survived…. To be honest, I was not entirely 100% serious when I said that. Even so, any system is just our attempt to capture reality. I've seen in a totally different place how systems get pretty close to a practical model, and then reality becomes more complicated again. E.g. if a foreign channel got one or two episodes as a sample, what then? That is how "Pit your wits" survived, but apparently not Marco Polo in Iran. And there are rumours of copies being made (speaking of TV in general here!) for South Africa.
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Post by John Wall on Oct 15, 2021 9:25:59 GMT
Remember that things like DW and OOTU were but a very small part of a very large operation. It must’ve been a sight to behold, racks and racks of drawers full of cards. For something like OOTU there might have been a card for each print struck which would record its movements, etc, etc. Nowadays it’d all be on a computer. I imagine it all went into a skip decades ago - but had it survived…. To be honest, I was not entirely 100% serious when I said that. Even so, any system is just our attempt to capture reality. I've seen in a totally different place how systems get pretty close to a practical model, and then reality becomes more complicated again. E.g. if a foreign channel got one or two episodes as a sample, what then? That is how "Pit your wits" survived, but apparently not Marco Polo in Iran. And there are rumours of copies being made (speaking of TV in general here!) for South Africa. The system they had was used to manage and control the distribution of prints. Those over a certain age would have had experience of card indexs that is completely alien to younger folks. If it had survived we’d know exactly how many prints were struck and where they went. South Africa has been discussed before, I don’t think any unauthorised showing of BBC material has been substantiated.
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