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Post by Patrick Coles on Aug 21, 2023 21:39:16 GMT
Re 'Paul Temple' - BBC screened it early sunday evenings and it was quite popular - however in his DVD interview Francis Matthews speaks of how the show was not looked upon too favorably by some of the BBC overlords who he felt considered it to be a bit 'too ITV' (!)
Paul was a snappy fashionable dresser - influencing both 'Jason King' and Roger Moore's Lord Brett Sinclair in 'The Persuaders !' - again deemed a bit 'too ITV' - Francis said later after his show was axed BBC supremo Huw Weldon spoke with him at a function and apologised for cancelling his show, so it seems Huw was not the chief culprit involved rather the combined BBC attitude was they didn't like doing a show that was more 'ITV' style regardless of how many regular viewers were watching
Francis added the show was even more popular across Europe hence the dubbed German DVD releases
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Post by John Wall on Aug 21, 2023 22:15:51 GMT
Re 'Paul Temple' - BBC screened it early sunday evenings and it was quite popular - however in his DVD interview Francis Matthews speaks of how the show was not looked upon too favorably by some of the BBC overlords who he felt considered it to be a bit 'too ITV' (!) Paul was a snappy fashionable dresser - influencing both 'Jason King' and Roger Moore's Lord Brett Sinclair in 'The Persuaders !' - again deemed a bit 'too ITV' - Francis said later after his show was axed BBC supremo Huw Weldon spoke with him at a function and apologised for cancelling his show, so it seems Huw was not the chief culprit involved rather the combined BBC attitude was they didn't like doing a show that was more 'ITV' style regardless of how many regular viewers were watching Francis added the show was even more popular across Europe hence the dubbed German DVD releases There’s always been a bit of a dichotomy for the BBC in being taxpayer funded. If they make something popular they’re accused of undercutting ITV and told that they should be doing highbrow, arty, stuff. But if they don’t make popular shows there are calls to abolish the licence fee. |
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Ace St.John
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Posts: 139
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Post by Ace St.John on Aug 22, 2023 9:14:30 GMT
Question:
Why didn't BBC Enterprises give
their DW prints to the BFI?
Answer:
because the receptionist was dottled that day and
sent the prints to the FBI.
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Post by michaelnorris on Aug 22, 2023 14:48:07 GMT
Question: Why didn't BBC Enterprises give their DW prints to the BFI? Answer: the archivist was dyslexic and sent the prints to the FBI They would probably all still exist locked in a vault somewhere if that happened  Of course when asked if they are gonna send them back to the BBC they would say "We have good people working on this. Good people!" |
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Post by brianfretwell on Aug 24, 2023 7:36:04 GMT
I also seem to remember that, at the time the prints were destroyed. thr BFI/NFA weren't interested in television only cinema films. They had kept the winners of 10 Best Amateur films of the year but passed them onto the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers. It wasn't like today after Dick Fiddy and others joined.
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Post by John Wall on Aug 24, 2023 8:48:18 GMT
I also seem to remember that, at the time the prints were destroyed. thr BFI/NFA weren't interested in television only cinema films. They had kept the winners of 10 Best Amateur films of the year but passed them onto the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers. It wasn't like today after Dick Fiddy and others joined. It did seem to take a while for TV programmes to lose their stigma as cheap and nasty, ephemeral, etc. As has been noted repeats were rare so overseas sales were one of the very few reasons for keeping things. I’m not sure if anyone has compiled a detailed timeline of how things changed? Was Sue Malden the prime mover? |
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Post by Richard Bignell on Aug 24, 2023 10:27:50 GMT
I also seem to remember that, at the time the prints were destroyed. thr BFI/NFA weren't interested in television only cinema films. I don't think that's true. The NFA had a Television Committee which met every few months to decide which examples of television they were interested in having copies of. However, they were charged for the copies regardless of what television company they got them from and they could only ever afford a percentage of the items they'd listed. Due to the terms of their charter and the stipulations various unions such as Equity, the BBC weren't permitted to just give their programming away, although I think some exceptions were made for "educational" material such as episodes of Horizon. |
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Post by Richard Bignell on Aug 24, 2023 10:37:42 GMT
It did seem to take a while for TV programmes to lose their stigma as cheap and nasty, ephemeral, etc. As has been noted repeats were rare so overseas sales were one of the very few reasons for keeping things. I’m not sure if anyone has compiled a detailed timeline of how things changed? Was Sue Malden the prime mover? In 1975, the BBC had set up the Advisory Committee on Archives chaired by historian Lord Asa Briggs to seriously look into all aspects of the corporation's archival activities and by the latter quarter of the 1970s, many of their recommendations were already being implemented, which included the preservation of BBC programming that would otherwise have been junked. The later appointment of Sue Malden to the position of Archive Selector was part and parcel of that, so the disposal of old episodes of Doctor Who really would have been stopping at that time anyway. |
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Post by John Wall on Aug 24, 2023 13:27:02 GMT
I also seem to remember that, at the time the prints were destroyed. thr BFI/NFA weren't interested in television only cinema films. I don't think that's true. The NFA had a Television Committee which met every few months to decide which examples of television they were interested in having copies of. However, they were charged for the copies regardless of what television company they got them from and they could only ever afford a percentage of the items they'd listed. Due to the terms of their charter and the stipulations various unions such as Equity, the BBC weren't permitted to just give their programming away, although I think some exceptions were made for "educational" material such as episodes of Horizon. Whilst 2” VT could be wiped and reused 16mm telerecordings couldn’t. |
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Post by Richard Bignell on Aug 24, 2023 17:41:38 GMT
I don't think that's true. The NFA had a Television Committee which met every few months to decide which examples of television they were interested in having copies of. However, they were charged for the copies regardless of what television company they got them from and they could only ever afford a percentage of the items they'd listed. Due to the terms of their charter and the stipulations various unions such as Equity, the BBC weren't permitted to just give their programming away, although I think some exceptions were made for "educational" material such as episodes of Horizon. Whilst 2” VT could be wiped and reused 16mm telerecordings couldn’t. I honestly don’t know what point you’re making here. |
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Post by John Wall on Aug 24, 2023 19:37:37 GMT
Whilst 2” VT could be wiped and reused 16mm telerecordings couldn’t. I honestly don’t know what point you’re making here. If something was considered worth preserving and existed on 16mm telerecordings - which would otherwise be destroyed - there’s no cost. We could be getting back to the question that started the thread…… |
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Post by George D on Aug 25, 2023 17:00:20 GMT
Have you ever thought of the cost of storage?
Its unfortunate there weren't people trash picking more films but unfortunately with the rights restrictions they didn't really have the rights to sell the actual films or technically even give them away.
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Post by John Wall on Aug 26, 2023 22:35:01 GMT
Have you ever thought of the cost of storage? Its unfortunate there weren't people trash picking more films but unfortunately with the rights restrictions they didn't really have the rights to sell the actual films or technically even give them away. The cost of storage is a valid point. The Enterprises solution seems to have been to use foreign broadcasters to store prints. If they sold DW, or anything, they’d look to see where prints were and them instruct the holder to bicycle them on. Contrary to what’s been occasionally suggested Enterprises wouldn’t have ordered prints on spec in the anticipation, or hope, of selling them - they almost certainly didn’t have the space to store them. Archives also had fixed space meaning that there was a limit to what they could hold. It should be noted that things could be in an archive even if there weren’t any rights to show them. |
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Post by Jon Preddle on Aug 26, 2023 23:25:52 GMT
Archives also had fixed space meaning that there was a limit to what they could hold. It should be noted that things could be in an archive even if there weren’t any rights to show them. I think you mean film store / film library. Very few TV stations would keep an archive. |
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Post by John Wall on Aug 27, 2023 7:42:13 GMT
Archives also had fixed space meaning that there was a limit to what they could hold. It should be noted that things could be in an archive even if there weren’t any rights to show them. I think you mean film store / film library. Very few TV stations would keep an archive. I mean somewhere things considered worth saving for posterity would be kept. |
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