The BBC Archives are collections documenting the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's broadcasting history.

Overview

The archives contain 1 million hours of media (audio and audio/visual) material dating back to the 1890s, with early material on wax cylinder. With other materials such as photos and written documents the archive contains 11 million items. The BBC is in the process of digitising the entire archive; as of summer 2010 they have spent approximately ten years digitising half of the media content and due to improving work practices expect to complete the other half in five years. The BBC estimates that the 11 million items will comprise approximately 52 petabyte

Petabyte

A petabyte is a unit of information equal to one quadrillion bytes, or 1000 terabytes. The unit symbol for the petabyte is PB...

s of information. Typically, one programme minute for video requires 1.4 gigabyte

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

s of storage.

The BBC uses the Material eXchange Format (MXF) which is an uncompressed, non-proprietary format which the BBC has been publicising in order to mitigate the threat of the format becoming obsolete (as digital formats can and do).

Undigitised the archive takes up 66 miles of shelving on which are held at least 15 video formats, two different gauges of film and 11 formats on which radio recordings are stored. The stock is managed using bar codes which help to locate material on the shelves and also track material that has been lent out. The storage environment is controlled for temperature

Temperature

Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...

 and humidity

Humidity

Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture,...

, different for audio than for video.

The BBC says that the budget for managing, protecting and digitising the archive accounts for only a small part of the BBC's overall spend.

The archives were relaunched online in 2008 and have released new historical material regularly since then. The BBC works in partnership with the British Film Institute

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

 (BFI), The National Archives and other partners in working with and using the materials.

A related project called "Genome" is expected to complete in 2011 and will make programme listings (not the media itself) dating back to 1923, sourced from The Radio Times, available to search online.

In July 2008, Roly Keating

Roly Keating

Roland "Roly" Keating is the current Director of Archive Content for the BBC.-Education:Keating was educated at Westminster School, an independent school for boys in London, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he read Classics.-Life and career:Keating joined the BBC in...

 was appointed Director of Archive Content, with responsibility for increasing public access to the BBC’s archives. In October 2008, Roly appointed Tony Ageh

Tony Ageh

Tony Ageh is currently the BBC's Controller of Archive Development having previously been Controller, BBC Internet, bbc.co.uk.He joined the BBC from the UK listings and information service UpMyStreet in 2002. At the BBC he led the team which devised and developed the BBC iPlayer...

 Controller of Archive Development with “specific responsibility for developing ways of making the archive easily understandable and accessible to users”.

Written Archives Centre

The BBC Written Archives Centre is part of the BBC Archives situated in Caversham, Berkshire

Caversham, Berkshire

Caversham is a suburb and former village in the unitary authority of Reading, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, within the royal county of Berkshire, on the opposite bank from the rest of Reading...

, a suburb of Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

The Centre holds the written records of the British Broadcasting Corporation, dating from 1922 to the present day. The current guidelines restrict access to post-1980 production files, although some later documents (such as scripts and Programme as Broadcast records) may be released. It is open to writers and academic researchers in higher education by appointment only. The Centre has also contributed documents for many major documentaries on radio and television.

Creative Archive Licence

The BBC together with the British Film Institute

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

, the Open University

Open University

The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

, Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 and Teachers' TV formed a collaboration, the Creative Archive Licence Group, to create a copyright licence for the re-release of archived material.

The Licence was a trial launched in 2005 and was notable for the re-release of part of the BBC's news

BBC News

BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

 archives and natural history

BBC Natural History Unit

The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...

 for creative use by the public
The Creative Archive Licence is a copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 licence developed by the Creative Archive Licence Group, initially a collaboration of the British Broadcasting Corporation, British Film Institute

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

, the Open University

Open University

The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

, Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 and Teachers' TV. While artists and teachers are encouraged to use the content to create works of their own, the terms of the licence are restrictive compared to other copyleft

Copyleft

Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...

 licences. Use of Creative Archive content for commercial, "endorsement, campaigning, defamatory or derogatory purposes" is forbidden, any derivative works must be released under the same licence, and content may only be used within the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Works released by the BBC under the licence were a part of a trial service that has now been withdrawn for review by the BBC Trust under the Public Value testing process. The Creative Archive trial ended in 2006.

Archives Treasure Hunt

The BBC launched the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt as a public appeal to recover pre-1980s lost BBC radio and television productions. Material was lost due to wiping

Wiping

Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

, copyright issues and technological reasons.

Productions recovered

As of September, 2009, more than one hundred productions have been recovered including:

Television

• The Men from the Ministry
  The Men from the Ministry
  The Men from the Ministry was a British radio comedy series broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977, starring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Murdoch and, from 1966, when he replaced Hyde-White, Deryck Guyler...
  
  
• Something To Shout About
  Something To Shout About
  Something to Shout About was the title of Lulu's first UK LP, released on the Decca label in 1965. Most of the songs are recorded in an R&B, early rock and roll style, that complimented Lulu's mature and raspy voice. It was released when she was just 17...
  
  
• Man and Superman
  Man and Superman
  Man and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...
  
  
• The Doctor's Dilemma
• I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again
  I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again
  I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again was a BBC radio comedy programme which originated from the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus...
  
  
• Hancock's Half Hour
  Hancock's Half Hour
  Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy, series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr...
  
  
• I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue
• The Ronnie Corbett Thing

List of BBC TV Series Affected by Wiping

• Abigail and Roger
  Abigail And Roger
  Abigail and Roger was a British sitcom that aired on the BBC Television Service in 1956. It was written by Kelvin Sheldon. The programme saw Julie Webb and David Drummond play Abigail and Roger, an engaged couple living in London bedsits.-Cast:...
  
  - All 9 episodes missing
• Adam Adamant Lives!
  Adam Adamant Lives!
  Adam Adamant Lives! is a British television series which ran from 1966 to 1967 on the BBC. Proposing that an adventurer born in 1867 had been revived from hibernation in 1966, the show was a comedy adventure that took a satirical look at life in the 1960s through the eyes of an Edwardian .- Character...
  
  - 12 episodes missing (one from series 1, 11 from series 2)
• All Gas and Gaiters
  All Gas and Gaiters
  All Gas and Gaiters was a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. It was written by Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, a husband-and-wife team who used the pseudonym of "John Wraith" when writing the pilot...
  
  - 22 episodes missing
• The Artful Dodger
  The Artful Dodger (TV series)
  The Artful Dodger was a short-lived black-and-white British sitcom starring Dave Morris and Gretchen Franklin. It ran for one series in 1959...
  
  
• B-And-B
  B-And-B
  B-And-B was a British sitcom starring Bernard Braden, his wife Barbara Kelly and their daughter Kim Braden. It was written by Michael Pertwee, and aired for a pilot and one series in 1968.-Cast:*Bernard Braden - Bernie*Barbara Kelly - Barbara...
  
  
• BBC-3
  BBC-3 (TV series)
  BBC-3 was a BBC television programme, devised and produced by Ned Sherrin and hosted by Robert Robinson, which aired for twenty-four hour-long editions during the winter of 1965-1966....
  
  
• Bachelor Father 10 episodes missing
• The Bed-Sit Girl
  The Bed-Sit Girl
  The Bed-Sit Girl was a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1966. Created by Chesney and Wolfe for Sheila Hancock, The Bed-Sit Girl aired for two series....
  
  - all 12 episodes missing
• Beggar My Neighbour
  Beggar My Neighbour (TV series)
  Beggar My Neighbour was a black-and-white British sitcom starring Reg Varney, Peter Jones, June Whitfield, Pat Coombs and Desmond Walter-Ellis...
  
  - 17 episodes missing
• Broaden Your Mind
  Broaden Your Mind
  Broaden Your Mind is a British television comedy series starring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden, joined by Bill Oddie for the second series...
  
  
• Citizen James
  Citizen James
  Citizen James was a BBC sitcom that ran for three series between 24 November 1960 and 1962. The show featured comedian and actor Sid James , Bill Kerr, Liz Fraser and Sydney Tafler...
  
  - 24 episodes missing
• Comedy Playhouse
  Comedy Playhouse
  Comedy Playhouse was a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served?...
  
  
• Compact
  Compact (TV series)
  Compact is a British television soap opera shown by the BBC between 1962 and 1965. The series was created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling, who together went on to devise Crossroads....
  
  - 369 episodes missing
• Dad's Army
  Dad's Army
  Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...
  
  - 3 episodes missing, plus 2 sketches
• Dixon of Dock Green
  Dixon of Dock Green
  Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...
  
  - 381 episodes missing
• Doctor Who
  Doctor Who
  Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
  
  - 108 episodes missing
• Doomwatch
  Doomwatch
  Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC One between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist , responsible for investigating and combating various...
  
  - 14 episodes missing
• Faces of Jim
  Faces of Jim
  Faces of Jim was a black-and-white British comedy television series starring Jimmy Edwards, June Whitfield and Ronnie Barker, with each episode being an individual half-hour sitcom. The first series aired as The Seven Faces of Jim, the second as Six More Faces of Jim and the third series as More...
  
  
• The Frost Report
  The Frost Report
  The Frost Report was a satirical television show hosted by David Frost. It ran for 29 episodes from 1966 to 1967. It is most notable for introducing John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett to television and also launching the careers of several comedians and performers.The main cast were...
  
  
• The Gnomes of Dulwich
  The Gnomes of Dulwich
  The Gnomes of Dulwich is a United Kingdom television sitcom originally shown in six episodes from 12 May 1969 to 16 June 1969. Written by Jimmy Perry, the show starred Terry Scott, Hugh Lloyd, John Clive, Leon Thau, Anne de Vigier and Lynn Dalby as garden gnomes living at 25 Telegraph Road,...
  
  - all 6 episodes missing
• The Goodies (TV series)
  The Goodies (TV series)
  The Goodies is a British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s. The series, which combines surreal sketches and situation comedy, was broadcast by BBC 2 from 1970 until 1980 — and was then broadcast by the ITV company LWT for a year, between 1981 to 1982.The show was...
  
  - 1 episode missing
• The Goon Show
  The Goon Show
  The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
  
  - Unedited episode missing
• Hancock's Half Hour
  Hancock's Half Hour
  Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy, series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr...
  
  51 episode missing for TV and Radio
• His Lordship Entertains
  His Lordship Entertains
  His Lordship Entertains was Ronnie Barker's second sitcom vehicle for his Lord Rustless character, first seen three years earlier in Hark at Barker on ITV. This time though, Rustless had switched channels and was now appearing on BBC2...
  
  - 6 episodes missing
• Hugh and I
  Hugh and I
  Hugh and I was a highly successful black-and-white British sitcom that aired from 1962 to 1967. It starred Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd as two friends who shared lodgings with Terry's mother and was followed by a sequel called Hugh and I Spy...
  
  - 62 episodes missing
• Hugh and I Spy
  Hugh and I Spy
  Hugh and I Spy was a black-and-white British sitcom that aired in 1968. It was the sequel of the long running and successful Hugh and I. All the episodes are thought to have been lost after the master tapes were wiped in the 1970s...
  
  - all 6 episodes missing
• It Ain't Half Hot Mum
  It Ain't Half Hot Mum
  It Ain't Half Hot Mum was a British sitcom about the adventures of a Royal Artillery Concert Party, broadcast on the BBC between 1974 and 1981, and written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army...
  
  - 2 episodes "lost at 1 stage after first broadcast & rerun"
• The Likely Lads
  The Likely Lads
  The Likely Lads was a black-and-white British sitcom created and written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, and produced by Dick Clement. Twenty episodes were broadcast by the BBC, in three series, between 16 December 1964 and 23 July 1966...
  
  - 12 episodes missing
• The Liver Birds
  The Liver Birds
  The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...
  
  - 4 episodes missing
• Marriage Lines
  Marriage Lines
  Marriage Lines was a popular black-and-white British sitcom that aired from 1961 to 1966 which launched the careers of its lead stars, Richard Briers and Prunella Scales. It was originally entitled The Marriage Lines...
  
  - 13 episodes missing
• Marty
  Marty
  Marty is a 1953 teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky. It was telecast live May 24, 1953, on The Goodyear Television Playhouse with Rod Steiger in the title role and Nancy Marchand, in her television debut, playing opposite him as Clara...
  
  - 7 episodes missing
• Me Mammy
  Me Mammy
  Me Mammy is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1968 to 1971. Starring Milo O'Shea, it was written by Hugh Leonard.-Background:Me Mammy first aired as pilot within the seventh series of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse. The pilot and first series were made in black-and-white...
  
  - 13 episodes missing
• Meet the Wife
  Meet the Wife
  Meet the Wife is a 1960s BBC situation comedy written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe, which featured Freddie Frinton as Freddie Blacklock with Thora Hird as his tyrannical wife, Thora. It ran to five series....
  
  - 22 episodes missing
• Not Only... But Also
  Not Only... But Also
  Not Only... But Also was a popular 1960s BBC British television series starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.-History:The show was originally intended as a solo project for Moore, called Not Only Dudley Moore, But Also His Guests...
  
  
• Not in Front of the Children
  Not in Front of the Children
  Not in Front of the Children is a BBC television situation comedy which ran for four series from 1967 to 1970.It starred Wendy Craig as a rather scatter-brained middle class housewife. Her husband was a school art teacher, played by Paul Daneman in the first series, and Ronald Hines after this...
  
  - 30 episodes missing
• Now Take My Wife
  Now Take My Wife
  Now Take My Wife was a BBC situation comedy which ran for only one series of 14 episodes in 1971.It starred Sheila Hancock and Donald Houston as a suburban middle-class couple, Claire and Harry Love. He would start each episode by turning to the camera and saying "Now .....
  
  - 2 episodes missing
• Oh, Brother - 11 episodes missing
• Out of the Unknown
  Out of the Unknown
  Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was an independent dramatisation of a separate science fiction short story...
  
  - 30 episodes missing
• Pinwright's Progress
  Pinwright's Progress
  Pinwright's Progress was a British sitcom that aired on the BBC Television Service from 1946 to 1947 and was the world's first regular half-hour sitcom. The ten episodes, which aired fortnightly in alternation with Kaleidoscope, were broadcast live from the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace...
  
  - all 10 episodes missing
• Play for Today
  Play for Today
  Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
  
  - 13 episodes
• Q
  Q (TV series)
  Q... was a surreal television comedy sketch show from Spike Milligan which ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About...
  
  
• The Rag Trade
  The Rag Trade
  The Rag Trade was a British television sitcom broadcast by the BBC between 1961 and 1963 and by LWT between 1977 and 1978.The scripts were by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, who later wrote Wild, Wild Women, a period variation of The Rag Trade....
  
  - 15 episodes missing
• Softly, Softly
  Softly, Softly
  Softly, Softly may refer to:* Softly, Softly , a 1966–1969 British police drama series** Softly, Softly: Taskforce, a 1969–1976 revamped version of the series* "Softly, Softly" , a popular song...
  
  - 86 episodes missing
• Son of the Bride
  Son of the Bride (TV series)
  Son of the Bride was a 1973 BBC television comedy which lasted one series.The central character was Neville Leggit, played by Terry Scott, a mother's boy who was rather old to be still single...
  
  - all 6 episodes missing
• Sykes and A...
  Sykes and A...
  Sykes and a... is a black-and-white British sitcom starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques that aired on BBC1 from 1960 to 1965. It was written by Eric Sykes, Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and Spike Milligan...
  
  - 34 episodes missing
• Sykes and a Big, Big Show
  Sykes and a Big, Big Show
  Sykes and a Big, Big Show is a British sitcom-sketch show that aired on BBC1 in 1971. Starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques, it was written by Eric Sykes and directed by Harold Snoad and Douglas Argent...
  
  - 4 episodes missing
• Till Death Us Do Part- 23 episodes
• Troubleshooters- 83 episodes
• United!
  United!
  United! was a British television series which was produced by the BBC between 1965 and 1967, and was broadcast twice-weekly on BBC1.The series followed the fortunes of a fictional second division football team, Brentwich United...
  
  - all 147 episodes missing
• The Wednesday Play
  The Wednesday Play
  The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...
  
  - 119 episodes missing
• Whack-O!
• Wild, Wild Women
  Wild, Wild Women
  Wild, Wild Women was a British sitcom that aired on BBC from 1968 to 1969. Made in black-and-white, it starred Barbara Windsor and was written by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney.-Pilot:*Barbara Windsor - Millie*Derek Francis - Mr Harcourt...
  
  - 6 episodes missing
• Z-Cars
  Z-Cars
  Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...
  
  -466 episodes missing

Voices from the archives

Voices from the Archives is a BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 website providing free access to audio interviews with author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

s, artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

s, actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

s, architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s, broadcasters

Presenter

A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

, cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

s, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

s, dancers, filmmakers, musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

s, painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

s, philosophers, photographers, playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

s, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

s, political activists, religious thinkers

Thought

"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...

, scientist

Scientist

A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

s, sculptors

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

, sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

s, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

s.

See also

• On This Day
  On This Day
  On This Day is the name of the BBC's news archive website. It contains an online digital library of news stories reported by the BBC on World War II and world events from the 1950s to 2005. There are entries for every day of the year, many including video or audio reports which can be viewed online...
  
  
• Wiping
  Wiping
  Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
  
  
• Lost film
  Lost film
  A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
  
  
• Film preservation
  Film preservation
  thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
  
  
• Missing Believed Wiped
  Missing Believed Wiped
  Missing Believed Wiped is an annual event hosted by the British Film Institute in which previously "wiped" television material from the UK, which has recently been recovered is screened....
  
  
• Telerecording
• Doctor Who missing episodes
  Doctor Who missing episodes
  The Doctor Who missing episodes are the instalments of the long-running British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who that have no known film or videotape copies. They were wiped by the BBC during the 1960s and 1970s for economic and space-saving reasons...
  
  
• History of television
  History of television
  The history of television records the work of numerous engineers and inventors in several countries over many decades. The fundamental principles of television were initially explored using electromechanical methods to scan, transmit and reproduce an image...
  
  
• History of radio
  History of radio
  The early history of radio is the history of technology that produced radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy"...
  
  
• Timeline of the BBC
  Timeline of the BBC
  - 1920s :* 1922** 18 October - The British Broadcasting Company is formed.** 14 November - First BBC broadcasts from London .** 15 November - First broadcasts from Birmingham and Manchester ....
  
  

External links

• Treasure Hunt website
• BBC archiving policy
• BBC Written Archives Centre site
• List of recovered productions
• British TV Missing Episodes Index
• Wiped News.Com - A news and features website devoted to missing TV, Film & Radio
• Creative Archive Licence Group
• Open University - Creative Archive
• Tech Weekly podcast: In the BBC archives from The Guardian website.
  • This podcast is entirely devoted to the BBC archive and includes interviews with archive staff.