RTE Ireland

[KennyG]

Andrew said:

In reply, I believe that the original broadcast would have been seen by future RTE executives and when RTE began broadcasting (I think it was earlier than 1962 and was around the end of 1960) was bought for showing at some stage of their start up period. It will be noted that if a programme was recorded it would have been kept for a minimum of two years and, possibly, three years before junking.

RTE started on 31 December 1961, which makes the find even stranger. It just seems odd to me that executives would remember a three-year-old play and buy a copy for their start-up station.

It makes sense, however, that once it found its way into the RTE archive it wasn't destroyed. RTE rarely, if ever, destroyed film.

Ken

[Andrew Doherty]

Yes, I had a chance to check up just before your post and, as you say, RTE started up at the end of 1961
(The night of new year's eve, 1961, saw the opening of RTE ).

So, they would have had to "buy in" some programmes from organizations such as the BBC.

I would think that the drama would have been seen by someone in 1958 who, later on, was involved with RTE. It is possible, if not probable, that whoever it was remembered this broadcast and made the appropriate enquiries with the BBC. It would certainly have had relevant overtones, apart from the fact that Patrick McGoohan was in a leading role.

It may have been pure chance that the telerecording had not been junked after the three year period.

Yours,

[KennyG]

Andrew said:

So, they would have had to "buy in" some programmes from organizations such as the BBC.

Agreed. Here in Ireland, its very well known they bought a lot of US series in the 1960s but I never heard about BBC telerecordings before. Makes you wonder what else they bought...

[Deleted]

Is there an online archive of RTE programmes or broadcasts [similiar to the ITN archive] ?

I'm particularly interested in finding out more info about a broadcast of a Van Morrison concert from The Rainbow, London 1973.

It was shown on UK TV [and circulates freely] but also broadcast on RTE with an extra song, 'I Paid The Price', the video of which has yet to see the light of day.

There's another RTE VM broadcast existing as audio-only that I need to research but the exact details escape my mind at the moment.

[KennyG]

Afraid not. If it was on film, it probably exists in RTE. As for VT, that's another story...

Ken