Wiping
Encyclopedia
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio
and television
production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotape
s, and telerecordings (kinescope
s), are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses. The practice was prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s, although it is now less common since associated storage costs have decreased, and especially since the advent of domestic audiovisual playback technology (e.g. videocassette and DVD
), with broadcasters and production houses realizing both the economic and cultural value of keeping archived material for both rebroadcast and potential profits through release on home video
.
recording to film was expensive, and most of what was recorded in this way has since been lost or destroyed.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) erased much of their early output. Much of the videotaped ABC program material from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased as part of an economy policy instituted in the late 1970s, in which old program tapes were surrendered for bulk erasure and reuse. This policy particularly targeted older programs recorded in black-and-white, leading to the loss of many recordings made before 1975, when Australian television converted to color. The ABC continued erasing older television output into the early 1980s.
Programs known to have been lost include most studio segments from the 1960s current affairs shows This Day Tonight
and Monday Conference, hundreds of episodes of the long-running rural serial Bellbird
, all but a handful of episodes of the early-1970s drama series Certain Women
, an early-1970s miniseries of dramatizations based on Norman Lindsay
's novels, and nearly all of the first 18 months of the weekly pop-music show Countdown.
Many episodes of popular Australian commercial TV series are also lost. In the 1970s, Network Ten
had an official policy to reuse tapes; hence, many tapes of Young Talent Time
and Number 96
were wiped. To this day, Network Ten still only keeps some of its programming. Other notable casualties from the Ten archive include hundreds of episodes of the Melbourne-based pop music shows commissioned and broadcast by ATV-0 Melbourne in the 1960s and early 1970s – The Go!! Show
(1964–1967), Kommotion (1964–1967), Uptight (1968–70), and the Happening 70s series (1970–1972).
The Nine Network
discarded copies of some of their programs, including the popular GTV-9
series In Melbourne Tonight
hosted by Graham Kennedy
. Though it ran five nights a week from 1957–1970, fewer than 100 episodes are known to survive, and many of the surviving episodes are edited prints made for rebroadcast across Australia. Early episodes of Hey Hey It's Saturday
do not exist because the program was broadcast live and did not begin videotape recordings until a number of years later.
produced new episodes of the soap opera Beto Rockfeller
by recording over previous episodes; as a result, few episodes survive.
Rede Record
also lost much footage from the 1960s due to wiping, fires, and deterioration; most of the MPB
music festivals no longer exist, and the sitcom Família Trapo has only one surviving episode, featuring Pelé
.
Rede Globo
lost the first 35 broadcasts of both Fantástico
and Jornal Nacional
, in addition to many segments of their other soap operas, as a result of wiping.
never practiced wiping, and maintained a complete archive of all programming that was recorded.
The CTV Television Network
has admitted to wiping many programs during the 1970s. Because of Canadian content
requirements, the need for Canadian-produced programming led to more preservation of the shows they produced, and even extremely poorly received programs (such as the infamous The Trouble with Tracy
) were saved and rerun for several years after their cancellation. Furthermore, Canadian rebroadcasts have been a source of some broadcasts that are otherwise lost in the United States and the United Kingdom.
and TBS
, practiced wiping.
, the United Kingdom's first public service broadcaster, had no archival policy in place until 1978. Much of the Corporation's output between the 1930s and 1980s has been lost. Rationales behind this policy include:
service dates back to 1936 and was originally a live medium. The hours of transmission were very limited and the bulk of the programming was transmitted either live from the studio, or from outside broadcast (OB)
units; pre-recorded film was a minor contributor to the output. When the first television broadcasts were made, there were two competing systems in use. The EMI electronic system (using 405 lines) competed with the Baird 240-line mechanical television
system. Baird adopted an intermediate film technique where the live material was filmed using a standard film camera mounted on a large cabinet which contained a rapid processing unit and an early flying spot scanner
to produce the video output for transmission. The pioneer broadcasts were not, however, preserved on this intermediate film as the nitrate (celluloid) stock was scanned while still wet from the fixer bath and never washed to remove the fixer chemicals. Consequently, the film decomposed very soon after transmission; none are known to have survived.
No studio or OB programmes from 1936–1939 or 1946-1947 have survived because there was no means of preserving them. Historical 'firsts' from this era, the world's earliest television crime drama Telecrime
(1938–39 and 1946) or Pinwright's Progress
(1946–47, the world's first regular situation comedy
), only remain visually as a handful of still photographs.
The earliest recording method for television was telerecording
, which involved recording the image from a special television monitor onto film with a modified film camera. Early examples made by this method include the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment
(1953), transmitted live while simultaneously telerecorded. The visual quality of the second episode's recording was considered so poor (a fly entered the gap between the camera and monitor at one point) that the remainder of the series was not recorded.
Although Quadruplex videotape recording technology was utilised in the UK from 1958, this system was expensive and complex; recorded programmes were often erased after broadcast. The vast majority of live programmes were never recorded at all. Videotape was not thought to be a permanent archivable medium – its high cost and the potential reuse of the tapes led to the transfer of programme material to film via telerecording
whenever preservation was believed worthwhile or sales of overseas screening rights were possible. The recycling of videotapes, coupled with savings made on the storage of the bulky 2" tapes, enabled the BBC to keep down costs.
. Conventional filmmaking was only gradually introduced from the 1960s. The Sunday Night Play (a major event in the 1950s) was performed live in the studio. On Thursday, because telerecording was of insufficient broadcast quality, another live performance followed, the artists returning to perform the play again.
Today, most programmes are pre-recorded and it is relatively inexpensive to preserve programming for posterity; even so, the BBC Charter
makes no mention of any obligation to retain all of them.
were highly suspicious of the threat to new work if programmes were repeated; indeed, before 1955 Equity insisted that any telerecording made (of a repeat performance) could only "be viewed privately" on BBC premises and not transmitted.
If telerecordings were made of a work and that work was then acquired by another party, then the recording had to be destroyed – this happened in 1955 when 20th Century Fox
acquired the rights to Anastasia
and the 1953 BBC telerecording of the play had to be destroyed (although the lostshows.com website states that recordings of both performances still survive). At this same time, agents would demand that programmes be wiped so that they could never be repeated; currently, actors are almost invariably paid to sign away these rights to the producing company.
(approximately £1,000 per tape at today's prices) meant that companies still often re-used the tapes for efficiency. Negative attitudes to a programme's value also persisted. For these reasons, many programmes survive only as monochrome film recordings, if at all.
, The Wednesday Play
, most of the seminal comedy series Not Only But Also, all of the 1950s televised Francis Durbridge
serials (further, the first two serials were never recorded), the vast majority of the BBC's Apollo 11
Moon landing studio coverage
, all but one of the 39 episodes of The First Lady
, and all 147 episodes of the soap opera
United!
. There are many gaps in many long running BBC series (Doctor Who
, Dixon of Dock Green
, Hancock's Half Hour
, Sykes
, Out of the Unknown
, and Z-Cars
).
The first acting appearance of musician Bob Dylan
, in a 1963 play entitled The Madhouse on Castle Street
, was erased in 1968.
There is lost material in all genres – as late as 1993, a large number of videotaped children's programmes from the 1970s and 1980s were irretrievably wiped by Adam Lee of the BBC
archives on the assumption that they were of "no use"...without consulting the BBC children's department itself.
soap operas The Appleyards
, The Grove Family
, Compact, The Newcomers
, 199 Park Lane
, and United!
produced approximately 1,200 episodes altogether.
As of today, both United! and 199 Park Lane have no episodes in the archives while only one episode of The Appleyards, three episodes of The Grove Family, and four episodes each of Compact and The Newcomers are extant.
Also vulnerable to the Corporation's wiping policy were programmes that only lasted for one series. Abigail and Roger
, The Airbase
, As Good Cooks Go
, the 1960 adaptation of The Citadel
, the 1956 adaptation of David Copperfield
, The Dark Island
, The Gnomes of Dulwich
, Hurricane, For Richer...For Poorer
, Hereward the Wake
, The Naked Lady, Night Train To Surbiton, Outbreak of Murder, Where do I Sit?, and Witch Hunt have all been wiped with no footage surviving.
A copy of Hugh and I
(Chinese Crackers), starring Hugh Lloyd
, Terry Scott
, John Le Mesurier
and David Jason
was located by Kaleidoscope Publishing
in 2010 in the archives of 'UCLA, and bought to general public attention in February 2011.
customers who had bought programmes from the Corporation in the past were contacted to see if they still had copies which could be dubbed for the archives; Doctor Who is a prime example of how this method recovered episodes that the Corporation did not hold themselves. The BBC has also established the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal campaign to recover lost productions.
The BBC also has close contacts with the National Film and Television Archive, which is part of the British Film Institute
and their "Missing Believed Wiped" event which was first held in 1993 (at which time the Corporation was still wiping material – see Rentaghost
) and is part of a campaign to locate lost gems of British Television. There is also a network of genuine collectors who, if they find any programmes missing from the BBC archives, will contact the Corporation with information – or sometimes even the actual episode(s). Some examples of programmes recovered for the archives are Doctor Who
, Steptoe and Son
, Dad's Army
, Out of the Unknown, The Likely Lads
, and Play for Today
.
For many years the pilot
episode of Are You Being Served?
survived only in black and white, and it was never known if the original colour master was lost or wiped. It appears in black and white on the 2003 DVD release of the show. In 2009, a colour version was reconstructed
when it was realised that the black and white film reel had actually recorded sufficient colour information as a dot crawl
pattern to allow the colour to be recovered.
Early episodes of the pop music-chart show Top of the Pops
were wiped or never recorded and only broadcast "live", the last edition that was wiped from the BBC
archives dates from 8 September 1977. There are only four complete TOTP episodes surviving from the 1960s, while many otherwise-missing episodes survive only as fragments.
Most episodes of The Sandie Shaw Supplement
(a music-variety show hosted by the singer) recorded in 1967 were promptly wiped after Sandie Shaw
asked for the original films to be converted to video cassette. Only two episodes exist today, and occasionally appear on internet purchasing sites such as eBay.
also wiped videotapes and destroyed telerecordings, leaving gaps in their archive holdings. The state of the archives varies greatly between the different companies; Granada Television
holds a large number of its older black-and-white programmes, the company having an unofficial policy of retaining as much of its broadcast material (albeit by telerecording) as possible despite financial hardship in its early years. This includes the entirety of the soap opera Coronation Street
which is now held at the Yorkshire Television
archive, which itself possesses largely intact archives (although some early colour shows from the late 1960's and the early 1970s such as the entire output of the drama Castle Haven, the first two series of Sez Les
and the children's variety show Junior Showtime
are missing and believed wiped). The former ITV company Thames Television
also has a significant library.
These cases tend to be the exception, however; the former nature of the ITV network, in which private independent companies were awarded licences to serve geographical areas for a set period of time, meant that when companies lost their licences their archives were often sold to third parties and became fragmented – and/or risked being destroyed (ownership and copyright
remained with the production companies rather than with the network). The archive of networked programmes made by Southern Television
, for example, is now owned by the Australian media company Southern Star Group
(no connection) – but Southern's regional output is in the hands of ITV plc
, whilst the few surviving tapes of Associated-Rediffusion
belong to many different organisations (the majority of Associated-Rediffusion's tapes were recorded in monochrome
and therefore deemed of no use upon the arrival of colour broadcasting; as such they were disposed of by their successor Thames Television
), although in recent years there have been occasional discoveries such as a 1959 episode of Double Your Money
and the remaining missing episode of Around the World with Orson Welles
, found by Ray Langstone in 2011. Many master tapes belonging to ATV
have since deteriorated due to bad storage and are unsuitable for broadcasting. In particular, the ATV version of the popular soap Crossroads is missing 2,850 episodes of its original 3,555. Also often largely lost are quiz shows; few editions exist of the 1970s version of Celebrity Squares with Bob Monkhouse
, or Southern's children's quiz Runaround
.
Further, responsibility for archive preservation was left to individual companies. For example, ITV has no record of its live coverage of the 1969 Moon landings after the station responsible for providing the coverage, London Weekend Television
, wiped the tapes. Of the 96 British
inserts to the 1980s franchised Anglo
-American
/Canadian
children's show Fraggle Rock
, only 12 are known to exist as the library of the British producer (TVS
) has been sold and subsequently split up.
In recent years, the trend of preserving material has started to change. The archives of Westward Television
and Television South West
are now held in trust for the public (The South West Film and Television Archive) whilst changes in legislation mean that dismissed ITV companies must donate archives to the British Film Institute
. However, the change of ITV from a federal structure to one centralized private company means that changes of regional companies in the future seems highly unlikely.
Most material from the 1960s also only survive as telerecordings. Some early episodes are also believed to be damaged or in poor quality, whereas much of the output of other broadcasters – such as many early episodes of The Avengers
(shot in the electronic studio rather than on film) produced by Associated British Corporation
– have been destroyed.
, New Zealand
, Canada
, and Africa
n nations such as Nigeria
) produced "missing" episodes from the archives of those television companies. Episodes have also been returned to broadcasters by private film collectors who had acquired 16mm copies from various sources.
Copies of several compilations from the British 1960s comedy At Last The 1948 Show
, held by many to be a forerunner of Monty Python's Flying Circus
, were discovered in the archives of the Swedish broadcaster SVT
, to whom the producers Rediffusion London had sold them upon the companies' loss of its broadcasting licence (the master tapes, along with much of Rediffusion's programming, having been wiped or disposed of by their successor Thames Television).
Off-air home audio recordings of various television programmes have also been recovered, at least preserving the soundtracks to otherwise missing shows, and some of these (particularly from Doctor Who
) have been released on CD by the BBC following restoration and the addition of narration to describe purely visual elements. Tele-snaps
, a commercial service of off-screen shots of programmes often purchased by actor
s and television director
s to keep a record of their work in the days before videocassette recorder
s, have also been recovered for many lost programmes.
, the major broadcast networks also engaged in the practice of wiping recordings until the late 1970s. Many episodes were erased, especially daytime and late-night programming such as daytime soap opera
s and game show
s. The daytime shows, almost all of them having been taped, were erased because it was believed at the time that nobody wanted to see them after their first broadcast. The success of cable television
networks devoted to reruns of these genres proved that this was not the case, as the large number of episodes that were required for a daily program made even a short-run game show an ideal candidate for syndication. By this time, however, the damage had already been done.
' videotaped network programs were also wiped. During different times as comedian, writer, and performer Kovacs had programs on all four major television networks (ABC
, CBS
, DuMont
, and NBC
). After Kovacs' death, the networks wiped many programs. Kovacs' widow Edie Adams
obtained as many programs and episodes as she could find, donating them to UCLA's Special Collections
.
(airing since 1965) has recordings of all its episodes, and The Young and the Restless
(airing since 1973) – along with cancelled soaps Dark Shadows
(1966–1971) and Ryan's Hope
(1975–1989) – saved most of their episodes despite the fact that they debuted during the 1960s and 1970s, before retaining tapes became common practice. Episodes of other soaps broadcast during the 1950s to 1970s do exist and have been showcased on various websites. The first two episodes of Days exist on their original master tapes, and were aired by SOAPnet in 2005.
The long-running soap opera Search for Tomorrow
, which aired from 1951–1986, is a quintessential example of a soap that was wiped. While scattered episodes from the 1950s and 1960s survive on kinescopes, many episodes of the CBS (later NBC) soap from the 1970s were erased after their broadcasts in order to shoot more episodes, due to the high cost of videotapes at the time. In many cases, at least a decade is missing. All episodes of Search's from the show's NBC run (1982-1986) are believed to be intact, and were rerun on the USA Network
in the late 1980s.
As the World Turns
and The Edge of Night
aired live until 1975, the year Edge moved to ABC
and ATWT expanded from a 30-minute broadcast to one hour. Both shows began taping episodes in preparation for the move of Edge to ABC; Edge's ABC debut is believed to have survived. Overall, the number of surviving monochrome episodes recorded on kinescope outnumber color episodes for these programs.
Agnes Nixon
initially produced her series One Life to Live
and All My Children
through her own production company, Creative Horizons, Inc., and kept a complete archive of monochrome kinescopes until ABC bought the shows from her in 1975. When the network wanted to expand Children from 30 minutes to a full hour in the late 1970s, Nixon agreed on the condition that the network would begin saving the episodes. ABC complied, and full hour broadcasts began on April 22, 1977. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the vast majority of the early-1970s kinescopes, leaving only a few episodes from each season. Children episodes from its first year on the air (1970–1971) were seen on ABC in the 1990s and on SOAPnet in February 2005, the latter in celebration of the show's 35th anniversary. A 1969 episode of OLTL was featured on the now-defunct World of Soap Themes website, and at least one episode from the late 1960s exists in color.
Procter and Gamble started saving their shows around 1978. Very few pre-1978 color episodes of the P&G-sponsored shows survive, with most extant episodes preserved as monochrome kinescopes; in addition, a number of 1970s shows recorded by viewers using early VCR technology have surfaced on a number of websites in recent years.
Many black-and-white episodes of Guiding Light
survive as kinescopes; although the quality of these films has degraded to the point where in some cases the video is too dark to be worth viewing, the audio quality is fine. A number of kinescopes from 1966, the year Light's setting shifted from Selby Flats, California to the Midwestern town of Springfield, were uploaded to a number of websites including the aforementioned WoST. Audio recordings of 1973–1974 Light episodes have also been uploaded.
There are only three known surviving black-and-white episodes of Another World
from 1964 at the Paley Center for Media. Another known AW episode available was a black-and-white kinescope from 1968, on the WoST website.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive holds a large amount of daytime television airings that were spared from the wiping practice. Virtually all episodes of General Hospital
from its premiere in April 1963 through August 1970 are archived at UCLA. Also archived there are handfuls of episodes of each soap opera (that was on the air at the time) from 1971 and 1973, including long-forgotten series such A World Apart
, Where the Heart Is
, and Return to Peyton Place
.
, covering its whole history from 1946–1956, was disposed of during the 1970s by a "successor" broadcaster (believed to be ABC) through dumping all of the kinescopes/videotapes into the East River
to make room for other tapes at a New York City warehouse. Further, a large number of DuMont's kinescopes were destroyed circa 1958 for their silver content.
Although approximately 350 or so episodes of DuMont programming are known to exist, this is minuscule in comparison to the sheer number of programs, totaling 20,000+ episodes, which were dumped.
with Jack Paar
and the first ten years hosted by his successor Johnny Carson
were taped over by the network, which is why Carson's late 1960s shows looked muddy compared to his competitor Dick Cavett
on ABC
; NBC
was using the Tonight Show tapes repeatedly.
and the first two Super Bowl
s, were also lost, though a nearly intact recording of the first Super Bowl was found recently.
was aired by both CBS
and NBC
(the only Super Bowl to be aired by two networks), but neither network felt the need to preserve the game long-term; CBS saved the telecast for a few months and reran it as filler programming at least once before wiping it. A color videotape containing the first, second and fourth quarters of the telecast from WYOU
(the CBS affiliate for Scranton, Pennsylvania
) was found in 2005 and is in the process of being restored. Super Bowl II
was aired exclusively by CBS and is also believed to have been erased. Though the telecast of Super Bowl III
exists in full color, only half of the Super Bowl IV
broadcast does (the rest was preserved by Canadian television in black-and-white), and the status of most of Super Bowl V
remains unknown. It was not until Super Bowl VI
that a continuous archive was established.
The National Football League
had its own filmmakers, NFL Films
, filming the game with its own equipment, and preserving its own telecast on tape was not seen as a priority when another source was available – though the networks' play-by-play comments, as a result, was lost.
(Reds
-Red Sox
) are known to exist in full. Follows is the known footage of World Series telecasts prior to 1975:
(Oakland
-Detroit
) is known to exist, however the copy on the trade circuit is missing the Bert Campaneris
-Lerrin LaGrow
brawl.
There are some instances where the only brief glimpse of telecast footage of an early LCS game can be seen in a surviving newscast from that night.
While all telecasts of World Series games starting with 1975
are accounted for and exist, the LCS is still a spotty situation through the late 1970s:
process, which involved filming the live broadcast from a television screen using a motion-picture camera (videotape, for recording programs, was not perfected until the late 1950s and was not widely used until the late 1960s). This was also a common practice for broadcasting live TV shows to the west coast
, as performers often performed a show back-to-back, but never back-to-back-to-back.
Daytime programs, however, were generally not kinescoped for preservation (although many were temporarily kinescoped for later broadcast, episodes recorded in this way were often junked). Many local station and network newscasts were prone to wiping.
, are largely lost. Moving images of Walter Cronkite
reading the news in his studio every night for six years are gone with the exception of his coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis
in 1962 and the JFK assassination in 1963. Studio shots of Peter Jennings
inside his ABC
studio during his first year there (1965) are also gone.
Vanderbilt University
has kept all evening national news telecasts since Monday, August 5, 1968.
As of 1997, CBS had saved 1,000,000 videotapes of news reports, broadcasts, stock footage, and outtakes according to a report that year from the National Film Preservation Board
. The same report added, "Television stations still erase and recycle their video cassettes", referring to local news programs.http://www.loc.gov/film/tvstudy.html Many local stations contract with outside companies for archiving news coverage.
, remains today. It was initially live and not recorded, but later in its run kinescopes were made for rebroadcasting. Fragments of episodes and one complete installment are known to exist.
, more than any other genre, were prone to wiping. Many games between 1941 and 1980 had insignificantly-short runs (some measured in a span of weeks or even days) that the networks felt it unnecessary to keep them for posterity, whereas recycling the tapes would be more profitable and less of an effort than attempting to sell the series in reruns, in an era before cable television
.
Mark Goodson
–Bill Todman
Productions (and to a lesser extent, Barry-Enright Productions
and Chuck Barris Productions
) had the foresight to preserve many of their games for later reruns; for years, these shows dominated the Game Show Network
(GSN) line-up.
Most other game shows from that era were not so fortunate. Almost all of the Bob Stewart
, Heatter–Quigley
, Hatos–Hall
(except for a large portion of Let's Make a Deal
), and pre-1980 Merv Griffin
productions have been destroyed, with the exception of a few rare pilots and "cast aside" episodes. The few remaining episodes have therefore become collectors' items, and an active trading circuit exists among collectors.
NBC and ABC continued the wiping process well into the 1970s; while ABC ceased in early 1978, NBC continued to wipe some shows into 1980, leaving much of their daytime game show content lost forever. CBS abandoned the wiping process by September 1972, largely as a result of their collaboration with Goodson-Todman; as a result, even the network's shorter-lived games (such as Spin-Off) still exist in their entirety. Incidentally, all three networks ended their wiping programs during the time Fred Silverman
led their respective networks.
While it remained in business, DuMont wished to keep its programs as intact as possible. However, the network ceased in 1956 and its archive was destroyed in the 1970s. The corporate successor to DuMont, Fox
, not only has never aired any daytime programming (other than its Fox Kids
block from 1990–2001) but debuted in 1986, well beyond the wiping era.
Examples of shows with a history of wiping include:
Another example is Pyramid (renamed several times over the years with higher dollar amounts), which was on two networks (CBS from 1973–1974 and ABC from 1974–1980; beginning in January 1976, The $10,000 Pyramid became The $20,000 Pyramid).
Of those episodes that survived, three weeks from November 1973 (15 episodes) which were taped at CBS Television City
in Hollywood instead of the normal taping location, the Ed Sullivan Theater
in New York City, were spared (they exist as master copies). A few were also recorded on videotape from the original broadcast. Aside from clips seen in the openings of the existing $20,000 Pyramid episodes, no episodes of the ABC $10,000 Pyramid exist on videotape.
As ABC ceased destroying daytime programming at the beginning of 1978, the remainder of the run survives.
The Big Showdown
was one of several short-lived ABC series in the mid-1970s, during an era when the network was a distant competitor to NBC and CBS in the daytime department and rotated game shows quickly in and out of the line-up. It is notable for the fact that it has only two episodes surviving in full (the original pilot titled Showdown, and an episode in which host Jim Peck
slips and falls down the stairs during his introduction), along with a bonus round from another; what happened to the rest of the latter's origin episode is unknown.
In the case of Concentration
, which had a very long run (1958–1973 on NBC and 1973–1978 in syndication), it was believed that the NBC version was completely destroyed. However, it was reported in 1999 that both the Hugh Downs/Jack Barry/Ed McMahon/Bob Clayton run fully exists on kinescope and the Jack Narz run fully exists on videotape.
GSN tried to purchase the Narz and Alex Trebek episodes (Classic Concentration) prior to launching in 1994, but NBC refused for unknown reasons.
Another example is the original NBC network run of High Rollers
, where two episodes from the first run (1974–1976) are known to exist. Ten episodes from the 1978-1980 revival exist in personal collections, including the finale.
For a long time, it was thought that all but approximately the last two years of the original Hollywood Squares
were wiped until a large number of episodes, mostly from the short-lived 1968 NBC prime-time and long-running 1970s syndicated runs but including some daytime episodes (such as a 1977 Storybook Squares episode), were discovered.
GSN aired about 130 of these episodes from 2002–2003, and on two occasions left the NBC "In Living Color" peacock
intact; on one of those two occasions, the NBC "snake" logo was also left intact.
Jeopardy!
NBC destroyed the majority of the original series hosted by Art Fleming, however the show's 1975 finale used several clips from episodes not currently known to exist; this may mean that the network began destroying the run starting from the first show. Incomplete "paper records" of NBC games exist on microfilm at the Library of Congress
, including two episodes featuring future Senator
and Presidential candidate John McCain
as a contestant, as well as the Tournament of Champions wins by Hutton Gibson
and Jay Wolpert
.
According to Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows co-author Fred Wostbrock, the 1970s syndicated version and 1978-1979 revival are both intact on videotape. Of the original NBC series, approximately 15-20 episodes remain from its original 2,753 (including the 1964 "test" episode).
Another Heatter–Quigley
show that was at one time believed to be extinct, which involved a giant pinball machine played by a contestant and their celebrity teammate. Only two full episodes are known to exist, along with footage shown during the 1979 film The China Syndrome
.
NBC also destroyed a majority of episodes from the Goodson-Todman game Mindreaders
, leaving the pilot, two full episodes, and the first two minutes of the New Year's Eve show. This was one of the few Goodson-Todman shows that has been lost to the process.
The ABC version of Password is one of the few Goodson-Todman series that is almost gone. GSN aired a 1971 episode featuring Brett Somers and Jack Klugman. A 1972 studio master has also survived, along with three 1975 episodes (including the finale of Password All-Stars and the June 27 overall finale). UCLA also has a small number of episodes in their archives.
Both this version and most of the CBS daytime version is considered lost and/or destroyed. Most of the CBS nighttime version and final daytime year (the latter of which was produced in color) survive. The color episodes were edited for syndication, whose high ratings through 1970 convinced Goodson-Todman to revive the series.
The ABC version was supposedly wiped to record Richard Dawson's Family Feud
, a common cause for the disappearance of many shows.
The 1977 game Second Chance
, the original version of the more popular Press Your Luck
, is believed to be completely destroyed. Only Pilot #3 and the series finale are known for certain to exist, the latter as an audio recording; several monochrome photographs of the set also exist.
The NBC game Snap Judgment, hosted by Ed McMahon
, is an example of a series that was completely destroyed by the wiping process. Only one full episode, plus an opening and a bonus round, are known to exist on audio tape.
NBC destroyed a majority of the episodes from Three on a Match
, with the exception of six episodes from 1973 and another five from 1974.
An example of a casualty of wiping/non-preservation is the CBS daytime version of To Tell the Truth
, which does not have a complete archive. A small number of episodes prior to 1966 still exist, three of which (two from 1964 and one from October 25, 1965) exist on film. The rest survive on videotape. It is believed a large number of episodes from 1966-1968 do exist. GSN has shown most of the surviving daytime episodes.
Wheel Of Fortune
NBC also destroyed the majority of the episodes hosted by Chuck Woolery, although about 15 circulate among collectors (the E! True Hollywood Story
on the show featured clips from the 1974 pilots and 1975 premiere). It is unknown where precisely the network stopped destroying episodes, although it is likely they ceased in 1980 along with their other shows.
A majority of the episodes from the NBC game show Winning Streak
was completely erased by the network as well, with the exception of two episodes (the pilot and the August 9 episode). It is widely believed that the latter survived due to it being preempted in its original run for news reports on Richard Nixon
's resignation from the presidency. The first two minutes of the December 26 show were recovered in February 2010.
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
s, and telerecordings (kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
s), are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses. The practice was prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s, although it is now less common since associated storage costs have decreased, and especially since the advent of domestic audiovisual playback technology (e.g. videocassette and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
), with broadcasters and production houses realizing both the economic and cultural value of keeping archived material for both rebroadcast and potential profits through release on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
.
Australia
Australian broadcasters did not gain access to videotape-recording technology until the early 1960s, and as a result nearly all programs prior to that were broadcast live-to-air. Very little programming survives from the earliest years of Australian TV (1956–1960) as kinescopeKinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
recording to film was expensive, and most of what was recorded in this way has since been lost or destroyed.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
(ABC) erased much of their early output. Much of the videotaped ABC program material from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased as part of an economy policy instituted in the late 1970s, in which old program tapes were surrendered for bulk erasure and reuse. This policy particularly targeted older programs recorded in black-and-white, leading to the loss of many recordings made before 1975, when Australian television converted to color. The ABC continued erasing older television output into the early 1980s.
Programs known to have been lost include most studio segments from the 1960s current affairs shows This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program of the late 1960s and early 1970s.- Overview :...
and Monday Conference, hundreds of episodes of the long-running rural serial Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
, all but a handful of episodes of the early-1970s drama series Certain Women
Certain Women
Certain Women was an Australian television soap opera created by prominent Australian TV dramatist Tony Morphett and produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation between 1973 and 1976....
, an early-1970s miniseries of dramatizations based on Norman Lindsay
Norman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
's novels, and nearly all of the first 18 months of the weekly pop-music show Countdown.
Many episodes of popular Australian commercial TV series are also lost. In the 1970s, Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
had an official policy to reuse tapes; hence, many tapes of Young Talent Time
Young Talent Time
Young Talent Time is an Australian television variety program screened on Network Ten, running from 1971 until 1988. The series features a core group of young performers in the vein of The Mickey Mouse Club, and a weekly junior talent quest. The "Young Talent Team" regularly performed popular...
and Number 96
Number 96 (TV series)
Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects...
were wiped. To this day, Network Ten still only keeps some of its programming. Other notable casualties from the Ten archive include hundreds of episodes of the Melbourne-based pop music shows commissioned and broadcast by ATV-0 Melbourne in the 1960s and early 1970s – The Go!! Show
The Go!! Show
The Go!! Show was a top rating Australian popular music television series which aired on ATV-0 Melbourne from 1964 to 1967, and was produced by DYT Productions at the Channel 0 studios in Nunawading, Victoria....
(1964–1967), Kommotion (1964–1967), Uptight (1968–70), and the Happening 70s series (1970–1972).
The Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
discarded copies of some of their programs, including the popular GTV-9
GTV-9
GTV is a commercial television station in Melbourne, Australia owned by the Nine Network. The station is currently based at a new high-tech, purpose-built studios at 717 Bourke Street, Docklands.-History:...
series In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....
hosted by Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
. Though it ran five nights a week from 1957–1970, fewer than 100 episodes are known to survive, and many of the surviving episodes are edited prints made for rebroadcast across Australia. Early episodes of Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday was a long-running variety television program on Australian television. It initially ran for 27 years , debuting on the Nine Network on 9 October 1971 and broadcasting its last episode on 20 November 1999. Its host throughout its entire run was Daryl Somers, who would later...
do not exist because the program was broadcast live and did not begin videotape recordings until a number of years later.
Brazil
From 1968-1969, TV TupiRede Tupi
Rede Tupi or TV Tupi was the first television network in South America...
produced new episodes of the soap opera Beto Rockfeller
Beto Rockfeller
Beto Rockfeller is a Brazilian telenovela produced by TV Tupi and aired from November 4, 1968 to November 30, 1969. It was created by Cassiano Gabus Mendes, written by Bráulio Pedroso and directed by Lima Duarte and Walter Avancini.-Plot:...
by recording over previous episodes; as a result, few episodes survive.
Rede Record
Rede Record
Rede Record de Televisão is a Brazilian television network, founded in 1953 by Paulo Machado de Carvalho, also founder of Rádio Record. Currently it is owned by businessman Edir Macedo, founder and bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Since 2007 it is Brazil's second largest...
also lost much footage from the 1960s due to wiping, fires, and deterioration; most of the MPB
Música Popular Brasileira
Música Popular Brasileira or MPB designates a trend in post-Bossa Nova urban popular music. It is not a discrete genre but rather a constellation that combines original songwriting and updated versions of traditional Brazilian urban music styles like samba and samba-canção with contemporary...
music festivals no longer exist, and the sitcom Família Trapo has only one surviving episode, featuring Pelé
Pelé
However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...
.
Rede Globo
Rede Globo
Rede Globo , or simply Globo, is a Brazilian television network, launched by media mogul Roberto Marinho on April 26, 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Organizações Globo, being by far the largest of its holdings...
lost the first 35 broadcasts of both Fantástico
Fantástico
Fantástico is a Brazilian weekly television newsmagazine broadcast on Sundays by Rede Globo.-Format:The show's first episode was on August 5, 1973 in black-and-white. It began as a variety show featuring music, dance numbers, teletheater, humor, mixed with a small amount of news. The following...
and Jornal Nacional
Jornal Nacional
Jornal Nacional is a Brazilian news program aired by Rede Globo since September 1, 1969. It was the first news program broadcast live by a television network throughout Brazil.-History:...
, in addition to many segments of their other soap operas, as a result of wiping.
Canada
The Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
never practiced wiping, and maintained a complete archive of all programming that was recorded.
The CTV Television Network
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
has admitted to wiping many programs during the 1970s. Because of Canadian content
Canadian content
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
requirements, the need for Canadian-produced programming led to more preservation of the shows they produced, and even extremely poorly received programs (such as the infamous The Trouble with Tracy
The Trouble with Tracy
The Trouble with Tracy was a Canadian television series produced by CTV for the 1970–1971 television season, with intended distribution by the U.S.-based National General Pictures. It is considered by some to be one of the worst situation comedies ever produced.The show was produced as a daily...
) were saved and rerun for several years after their cancellation. Furthermore, Canadian rebroadcasts have been a source of some broadcasts that are otherwise lost in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Japan
Several Japanese broadcasters, including NHKNHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
and TBS
Tokyo Broadcasting System
, TBS Holdings, Inc. or TBSHD, is a stockholding company in Tokyo, Japan. It is a parent company of a television network named and radio network named ....
, practiced wiping.
BBC
The BBCBBC
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...
, the United Kingdom's first public service broadcaster, had no archival policy in place until 1978. Much of the Corporation's output between the 1930s and 1980s has been lost. Rationales behind this policy include:
Technological
The BBC's televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
service dates back to 1936 and was originally a live medium. The hours of transmission were very limited and the bulk of the programming was transmitted either live from the studio, or from outside broadcast (OB)
Outside broadcasting
Outside broadcasting is the electronic field production of television or radio programmes from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video camera and microphone signals come into the production truck for processing, recording and possibly transmission...
units; pre-recorded film was a minor contributor to the output. When the first television broadcasts were made, there were two competing systems in use. The EMI electronic system (using 405 lines) competed with the Baird 240-line mechanical television
Mechanical television
Mechanical television was a broadcast television system that used mechanical or electromechanical devices to capture and display video images. However, the images themselves were usually transmitted electronically and via radio waves...
system. Baird adopted an intermediate film technique where the live material was filmed using a standard film camera mounted on a large cabinet which contained a rapid processing unit and an early flying spot scanner
Flying spot scanner
A flying-spot scanner uses a scanning source of a spot of light, such as a high-resolution, high-light-output, low-persistence Cathode Ray Tube , to scan an image, usually from motion picture film or a slide...
to produce the video output for transmission. The pioneer broadcasts were not, however, preserved on this intermediate film as the nitrate (celluloid) stock was scanned while still wet from the fixer bath and never washed to remove the fixer chemicals. Consequently, the film decomposed very soon after transmission; none are known to have survived.
No studio or OB programmes from 1936–1939 or 1946-1947 have survived because there was no means of preserving them. Historical 'firsts' from this era, the world's earliest television crime drama Telecrime
Telecrime
Telecrime was a British drama series that aired on the BBC Television Service from 1938 to 1939 and in 1946. One of the first multi-episode drama series ever made, it is also one of the first television dramas written especially for television not adapted from theatre or radio...
(1938–39 and 1946) or 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...
(1946–47, the world's first regular situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
), only remain visually as a handful of still photographs.
The earliest recording method for television was telerecording
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
, which involved recording the image from a special television monitor onto film with a modified film camera. Early examples made by this method include the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
(1953), transmitted live while simultaneously telerecorded. The visual quality of the second episode's recording was considered so poor (a fly entered the gap between the camera and monitor at one point) that the remainder of the series was not recorded.
Although Quadruplex videotape recording technology was utilised in the UK from 1958, this system was expensive and complex; recorded programmes were often erased after broadcast. The vast majority of live programmes were never recorded at all. Videotape was not thought to be a permanent archivable medium – its high cost and the potential reuse of the tapes led to the transfer of programme material to film via telerecording
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
whenever preservation was believed worthwhile or sales of overseas screening rights were possible. The recycling of videotapes, coupled with savings made on the storage of the bulky 2" tapes, enabled the BBC to keep down costs.
Cultural
Drama and entertainment output was studio-based and followed the tradition of live theatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
. Conventional filmmaking was only gradually introduced from the 1960s. The Sunday Night Play (a major event in the 1950s) was performed live in the studio. On Thursday, because telerecording was of insufficient broadcast quality, another live performance followed, the artists returning to perform the play again.
Today, most programmes are pre-recorded and it is relatively inexpensive to preserve programming for posterity; even so, the BBC Charter
BBC Charter
The BBC Charter established the BBC . An accompanying Agreement recognises its editorial independence and sets out its public obligations in detail....
makes no mention of any obligation to retain all of them.
Rights
All television programmes have copyright and other rights issues associated with them. For some genres of programmes – such as drama and entertainment – the actors, writers, and musicians involved in a production all have underlying rights. In the past, these rights were defended rigorously – permission could even be denied by a contributor for the repeat or re-use of a programme. Talent unionsTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
were highly suspicious of the threat to new work if programmes were repeated; indeed, before 1955 Equity insisted that any telerecording made (of a repeat performance) could only "be viewed privately" on BBC premises and not transmitted.
If telerecordings were made of a work and that work was then acquired by another party, then the recording had to be destroyed – this happened in 1955 when 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
acquired the rights to Anastasia
Anastasia (1956 film)
Anastasia is a 1956 American historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak for 20th Century Fox. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. Supporting players include Akim Tamiroff, Martita Hunt, and, in a small role, Natalie Schafer...
and the 1953 BBC telerecording of the play had to be destroyed (although the lostshows.com website states that recordings of both performances still survive). At this same time, agents would demand that programmes be wiped so that they could never be repeated; currently, actors are almost invariably paid to sign away these rights to the producing company.
Colour television
The introduction of colour television in the United Kingdom from 1967 meant that broadcasters felt there was even less value in retaining monochrome recordings. Such tapes could not be re-used for colour production, so they were disposed of to create space for the new colour tapes in the (quickly becoming full) archives. The increased cost of colour 2 inch Quadruplex videotape2 inch Quadruplex videotape
2-inch quadruplex videotape was the first practical and commercially successful analog recording videotape format. It was developed and released for the broadcast television industry in 1956 by Ampex, an American company based in Redwood City, California...
(approximately £1,000 per tape at today's prices) meant that companies still often re-used the tapes for efficiency. Negative attitudes to a programme's value also persisted. For these reasons, many programmes survive only as monochrome film recordings, if at all.
Significant wiped programmes
High-profile examples of programme losses include many episodes of Doctor WhoDoctor 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...
, 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...
, most of the seminal comedy series Not Only But Also, all of the 1950s televised Francis Durbridge
Francis Durbridge
Francis Henry Durbridge was an English playwright and author. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School in Yorkshire where he was encouraged to write by his English teacher. He continued to do so whilst studying English at Birmingham University...
serials (further, the first two serials were never recorded), the vast majority of the BBC's Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
Moon landing studio coverage
British television Apollo 11 coverage
British television coverage of Apollo 11, man's first mission to land on the moon, lasted from 16 to 24 July 1969 . All the then three UK channels BBC1, BBC2 and ITV provided extensive coverage...
, all but one of the 39 episodes of The First Lady
The First Lady (TV series)
The First Lady is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1968 and 1969.The series starred Thora Hird as crusading local councillor Sarah Danby and was set around the fictional borough of Furness in Lancashire...
, and all 147 episodes of the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
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...
. There are many gaps in many long running BBC series (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...
, 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:...
, 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...
, Sykes
Sykes
Sykes is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1972 to 1979. Starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques, it was written by Eric Sykes, who had previously starred with Jacques in Sykes and A... and Sykes and a Big, Big Show ....
, 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...
, and 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...
).
The first acting appearance of musician Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, in a 1963 play entitled The Madhouse on Castle Street
The Madhouse on Castle Street
Madhouse on Castle Street is a British television play, broadcast by BBC Television on the evening of 13 January 1963, as part of the Sunday Night Play strand. It was written by Evan Jones and directed by Philip Saville...
, was erased in 1968.
There is lost material in all genres – as late as 1993, a large number of videotaped children's programmes from the 1970s and 1980s were irretrievably wiped by Adam Lee of 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...
archives on the assumption that they were of "no use"...without consulting the BBC children's department itself.
Other lost material
Virtually the entire runs of the Corporation's pre-1970s soap operas have been lost. In the 1950s and 1960s, the BBCBBC
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...
soap operas The Appleyards
The Appleyards
The Appleyards was a British television soap opera for children, made and transmitted fortnightly by BBC Television from 1952 to 1957, from the BBC's Lime Grove Studios....
, The Grove Family
The Grove Family
The Grove Family is a British television soap opera, generally regarded as the first of its kind broadcast in the UK, made and transmitted by BBC Television from 1954 to 1957...
, Compact, The Newcomers
The Newcomers
The Newcomers may refer to:* The Newcomers , British soap opera aired by the BBC * The Newcomers , Canadian television series aired by the CBC * The Newcomers , American film...
, 199 Park Lane
199 Park Lane
199 Park Lane is a British television soap opera produced by the BBC in 1965.The series was a consciously upper-class affair, based around the residents of an exclusive block of apartments in London, and dealt with the intrigues of the Chelsea/Kensington set.All of this short-lived soap opera's 18...
, and 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...
produced approximately 1,200 episodes altogether.
As of today, both United! and 199 Park Lane have no episodes in the archives while only one episode of The Appleyards, three episodes of The Grove Family, and four episodes each of Compact and The Newcomers are extant.
Also vulnerable to the Corporation's wiping policy were programmes that only lasted for one series. 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:...
, The Airbase
The Airbase
The Airbase is a black-and-white British sitcom that on BBC2 in 1965. It was written by John Briley.-Cast:*David Kelsey - Sqdn-Ldr Terence Elgin Heatherton*David Healy - Staff Sgt...
, As Good Cooks Go
As Good Cooks Go
As Good Cooks Go is a black-and-white British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1970. It stars Tessie O'Shea and was written by John Warren and John Singer.-Cast:*Tessie O'Shea - Blodwen O'Reilly*Robert Dorning - Mr Bullock ...
, the 1960 adaptation of The Citadel
The Citadel (novel)
The Citadel is a novel by A. J. Cronin, first published in 1937, which was groundbreaking with its treatment of the contentious theme of medical ethics. It is credited with laying the foundation in Great Britain for the introduction of the NHS a decade later...
, the 1956 adaptation of David Copperfield
David Copperfield (novel)
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery , commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial...
, The Dark Island
The Dark Island
The Dark Island is a six part British television miniseries, produced by Gerard Glaister for the BBC. It premièred on 8 July 1962. It was later adapted for radio, which was transmitted in 1969...
, 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,...
, Hurricane, For Richer...For Poorer
For Richer...For Poorer
For Richer...For Poorer was a 1975 BBC television pilot starring Harry H Corbett as Bert, a union shop-steward who worships Stalin and has dreams of becoming a major politician....
, Hereward the Wake
Hereward the Wake
Hereward the Wake , known in his own times as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile, was an 11th-century leader of local resistance to the Norman conquest of England....
, The Naked Lady, Night Train To Surbiton, Outbreak of Murder, Where do I Sit?, and Witch Hunt have all been wiped with no footage surviving.
A copy of 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...
(Chinese Crackers), starring Hugh Lloyd
Hugh Lloyd
Hugh Lewis Lloyd, MBE was an English actor who made his name in television and film comedy from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was best known for appearances in Hugh and I and other sitcoms of the 1960s.-Life:...
, Terry Scott
Terry Scott
Owen John "Terry" Scott was an English actor and comedian who appeared in seven Carry On films. He also appeared in BBC1's popular domestic sitcom Terry and June with June Whitfield...
, John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
and David Jason
David Jason
Sir David John White, OBE , better known by his stage name David Jason, is an English BAFTA award-winning actor. He is best known as the main character Derek "Del Boy" Trotter on the BBC sit-com Only Fools and Horses from 1981, the voice of Mr Toad in The Wind In The Willows and as detective Jack...
was located by Kaleidoscope Publishing
Kaleidoscope Publishing
Kaleidoscope Publishing is a publishing house founded by the late Richard Down and Chris Perry, and based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1988 and exists to promote the appreciation of British television, including classic and cult programming...
in 2010 in the archives of 'UCLA, and bought to general public attention in February 2011.
Finding missing BBC programmes
Since the establishment of an archival policy for television in 1978, BBC archivists and others over the years have used various contacts in the UK and abroad to try to track down missing programmes. For example, all BBC WorldwideBBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
customers who had bought programmes from the Corporation in the past were contacted to see if they still had copies which could be dubbed for the archives; Doctor Who is a prime example of how this method recovered episodes that the Corporation did not hold themselves. The BBC has also established the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal campaign to recover lost productions.
The BBC also has close contacts with the National Film and Television Archive, which is part of 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...
and their "Missing Believed Wiped" event which was first held in 1993 (at which time the Corporation was still wiping material – see Rentaghost
Rentaghost
Rentaghost is a British children's television comedy show, broadcast by the BBC between 6 January 1976 and 6 November 1984. The show's plot centred on the antics of a number of ghosts who worked for a firm called Rentaghost, which rented out the ghosts for various tasks.-Background:The company,...
) and is part of a campaign to locate lost gems of British Television. There is also a network of genuine collectors who, if they find any programmes missing from the BBC archives, will contact the Corporation with information – or sometimes even the actual episode(s). Some examples of programmes recovered for the archives are 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...
, Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
, 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...
, Out of the Unknown, 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...
, and 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...
.
For many years the pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
episode of Are You Being Served?
Are You Being Served?
Are You Being Served? is a British sitcom broadcast from 1972 to 1985. It was set in the ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments of Grace Brothers, a large, fictional London department store. It was written mainly by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, with contributions by Michael Knowles and John...
survived only in black and white, and it was never known if the original colour master was lost or wiped. It appears in black and white on the 2003 DVD release of the show. In 2009, a colour version was reconstructed
Colour recovery
Colour recovery is a process which can restore lost colour, specifically to television programmes which were originally transmitted in colour, but for which only black & white copies remain archived...
when it was realised that the black and white film reel had actually recorded sufficient colour information as a dot crawl
Dot crawl
Dot crawl is the popular name for a visual defect of color analog video standards when signals are transmitted as composite video, as in terrestrial broadcast television. It consists of animated checkerboard patterns which appear along vertical color transitions...
pattern to allow the colour to be recovered.
Early episodes of the pop music-chart show Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
were wiped or never recorded and only broadcast "live", the last edition that was wiped from 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...
archives dates from 8 September 1977. There are only four complete TOTP episodes surviving from the 1960s, while many otherwise-missing episodes survive only as fragments.
Most episodes of The Sandie Shaw Supplement
The Sandie Shaw Supplement
The Sandie Shaw Supplement was a television show hosted by 1960s British singer Sandie Shaw in 1968 and also the name of her fourth original album released in November of that year by Pye Records and re-issued shortly afterwards on the Marble Arch label...
(a music-variety show hosted by the singer) recorded in 1967 were promptly wiped after Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest...
asked for the original films to be converted to video cassette. Only two episodes exist today, and occasionally appear on internet purchasing sites such as eBay.
ITV
The BBC was not alone in this practice – the commercial companies that formed its main rival ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
also wiped videotapes and destroyed telerecordings, leaving gaps in their archive holdings. The state of the archives varies greatly between the different companies; Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
holds a large number of its older black-and-white programmes, the company having an unofficial policy of retaining as much of its broadcast material (albeit by telerecording) as possible despite financial hardship in its early years. This includes the entirety of the soap opera Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
which is now held at the Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
archive, which itself possesses largely intact archives (although some early colour shows from the late 1960's and the early 1970s such as the entire output of the drama Castle Haven, the first two series of Sez Les
Sez Les
Sez Les was a British comedy sketch show that starred Les Dawson. It was produced by Yorkshire Television and aired on ITV from 1969 to 1976. The show also starred Roy Barraclough from series Four - who would go on to become Dawson's most recognisable sidekick. The two most notably appeared...
and the children's variety show Junior Showtime
Junior Showtime
Junior Showtime was a British variety show for children made by Yorkshire Television and shown on ITV between 1969 and 1974.Presented by Bobby Bennett from the Leeds City Varieties theatre, the show consisted of song and dance routines and was produced by Jess Yates...
are missing and believed wiped). The former ITV company Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
also has a significant library.
These cases tend to be the exception, however; the former nature of the ITV network, in which private independent companies were awarded licences to serve geographical areas for a set period of time, meant that when companies lost their licences their archives were often sold to third parties and became fragmented – and/or risked being destroyed (ownership and 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...
remained with the production companies rather than with the network). The archive of networked programmes made by Southern Television
Southern Television
Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...
, for example, is now owned by the Australian media company Southern Star Group
Southern Star Group
Southern Star Group is Australia's largest independent television production and distribution group....
(no connection) – but Southern's regional output is in the hands of ITV plc
ITV plc
ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...
, whilst the few surviving tapes of Associated-Rediffusion
Associated-Rediffusion
Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion, London, was the British ITV contractor for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 1954 and 29 July 1968. Transmissions started on 22 September 1955.-Formation:...
belong to many different organisations (the majority of Associated-Rediffusion's tapes were recorded in monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
and therefore deemed of no use upon the arrival of colour broadcasting; as such they were disposed of by their successor Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
), although in recent years there have been occasional discoveries such as a 1959 episode of Double Your Money
Double Your Money
Double Your Money was a British quiz show hosted by Hughie Green. Originally broadcast on Radio Luxembourg, it transferred to ITV in 1955, a few days after the commercial channel began broadcasting. It was produced by Associated-Rediffusion until 1964 and then by Rediffusion London, and it finished...
and the remaining missing episode of Around the World with Orson Welles
Around The World With Orson Welles
Around the World with Orson Welles was a series of six short travelogues originally written and directed by Orson Welles for Associated-Rediffusion in 1955. Among the more notable episodes, Welles visited Jean Cocteau and Juliette Gréco in Paris, attended a bullfight in Madrid and visited the...
, found by Ray Langstone in 2011. Many master tapes belonging to ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
have since deteriorated due to bad storage and are unsuitable for broadcasting. In particular, the ATV version of the popular soap Crossroads is missing 2,850 episodes of its original 3,555. Also often largely lost are quiz shows; few editions exist of the 1970s version of Celebrity Squares with Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse
Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...
, or Southern's children's quiz Runaround
Runaround (game show)
Runaround was a children's television game show produced by Heatter-Quigley Productions. The program was hosted by Paul Winchell, airing Saturday mornings on NBC from September 9, 1972 to September 1, 1973...
.
Further, responsibility for archive preservation was left to individual companies. For example, ITV has no record of its live coverage of the 1969 Moon landings after the station responsible for providing the coverage, London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
, wiped the tapes. Of the 96 British
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...
inserts to the 1980s franchised Anglo
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...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
/Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
children's show Fraggle Rock
Fraggle Rock
Fraggle Rock is a children's live action puppet television program series created by Jim Henson. The central characters were a set of "Muppet" creatures called Fraggles. The show ran from January 10, 1983, to March 30, 1987, on CBC Television in Canada, ITV in the UK, HBO in the United States,...
, only 12 are known to exist as the library of the British producer (TVS
Television South
Television South was the ITV franchise holder in the south and south east of England between 1 January 1982 and 31 December 1992. The company operated under various names, initially as Television South plc and then following reorganisation in 1989 as TVS Entertainment plc, with its UK...
) has been sold and subsequently split up.
In recent years, the trend of preserving material has started to change. The archives of Westward Television
Westward Television
Westward Television was the first ITV franchise holder for the South West of England from 29 April 1961 until 31 December 1981. After a difficult start, Westward provided a popular, distinctive and highly regarded service to its region, until public boardroom squabbles led to its franchise not...
and Television South West
Television South West
Television South West was the ITV franchise holder for the South West England region from 1 January 1982 until 31 December 1992, broadcasting from the former Westward Television studios in Plymouth, Devon.-Origins and Launch:...
are now held in trust for the public (The South West Film and Television Archive) whilst changes in legislation mean that dismissed ITV companies must donate archives to 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...
. However, the change of ITV from a federal structure to one centralized private company means that changes of regional companies in the future seems highly unlikely.
Most material from the 1960s also only survive as telerecordings. Some early episodes are also believed to be damaged or in poor quality, whereas much of the output of other broadcasters – such as many early episodes of The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
(shot in the electronic studio rather than on film) produced by Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
– have been destroyed.
Recovery of missing programmes
Since the BBC library was first audited in 1978, missing programmes or extracts on either film or tape are often found in unexpected places. An appeal to broadcasters in other countries who had shown missing programmes (notably AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n nations such as Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
) produced "missing" episodes from the archives of those television companies. Episodes have also been returned to broadcasters by private film collectors who had acquired 16mm copies from various sources.
- Two Series 1 episodes of The AvengersThe Avengers (TV series)The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
(an Associated British CorporationAssociated British CorporationAssociated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
production) which were thought to be missing were recovered from the UCLA Film & Television Archive in the United States. - It emerged in September 2010 that more than 60 recordings of BBC and ITV drama productions originally sent for broadcast in the United States by the PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
station WNETWNETWNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
in New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
had been found at the Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. - The BBC sitcom Steptoe and SonSteptoe and SonSteptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
is completely intact, although approximately half of the colour episodes only exist in monochrome; this was after copies of episodes thought to be lost were recovered in the late 1990s from early home video recordings made by writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. - A few audio recordings of Til Death Us Do PartTil Death Us Do PartTill Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1968, 1970, and from 1972 to 1975. First airing as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, the show aired in seven series until 1975. Six years later, ITV continued the sitcom, calling it Till Death......
have been recovered, as well as an extract of the pilot and two episodes from Series 3.
Copies of several compilations from the British 1960s comedy At Last The 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show is a satirical TV show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions , in association with Rediffusion London...
, held by many to be a forerunner of Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
, were discovered in the archives of the Swedish broadcaster SVT
Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...
, to whom the producers Rediffusion London had sold them upon the companies' loss of its broadcasting licence (the master tapes, along with much of Rediffusion's programming, having been wiped or disposed of by their successor Thames Television).
Off-air home audio recordings of various television programmes have also been recovered, at least preserving the soundtracks to otherwise missing shows, and some of these (particularly from 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...
) have been released on CD by the BBC following restoration and the addition of narration to describe purely visual elements. Tele-snaps
Tele-snaps
Tele-snaps were off-screen photographs of British television broadcasts, taken and sold commercially by John Cura . From 1947 until 1968, Cura ran a business selling the 250,000-plus tele-snaps he took...
, a commercial service of off-screen shots of programmes often purchased by 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 and television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
s to keep a record of their work in the days before videocassette recorder
Videocassette recorder
The videocassette recorder , is a type of electro-mechanical device that uses removable videocassettes that contain magnetic tape for recording analog audio and analog video from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time...
s, have also been recovered for many lost programmes.
Preservation of the current archive
Advances in technology have resulted in old programming being transferred to new digital media, where they can be restored or (if they are damaged or otherwise cannot be restored) kept from decaying further. In the United Kingdom, the archives of both the BBC and those available of ITV, along with other channels, are being switched from cumbersome 2-inch quadruplex videotape to digital format. This is an extensive and expensive process and one that will take many years to complete.United States
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the major broadcast networks also engaged in the practice of wiping recordings until the late 1970s. Many episodes were erased, especially daytime and late-night programming such as daytime soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
s and game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
s. The daytime shows, almost all of them having been taped, were erased because it was believed at the time that nobody wanted to see them after their first broadcast. The success of cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
networks devoted to reruns of these genres proved that this was not the case, as the large number of episodes that were required for a daily program made even a short-run game show an ideal candidate for syndication. By this time, however, the damage had already been done.
Ernie Kovacs
Many of Ernie KovacsErnie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
' videotaped network programs were also wiped. During different times as comedian, writer, and performer Kovacs had programs on all four major television networks (ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, DuMont
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
, and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
). After Kovacs' death, the networks wiped many programs. Kovacs' widow Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
obtained as many programs and episodes as she could find, donating them to UCLA's Special Collections
Special collections
In library science, special collections is the name applied to a specific repository or department, usually within a library, which stores materials of a "special" nature, including rare books, archives, and collected manuscripts...
.
Soap operas
Though most soap operas transitioned from live broadcast to videotaping their shows during the 1960s, it was still common practice to wipe and reuse the tapes. Most soaps began routinely saving their episodes between 1976 and 1979; several soap operas have saved recordings of all their episodes. The long-running Days of our LivesDays of our Lives
Days of our Lives is a long running daytime soap opera broadcast on the NBC television network. It is one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world, airing nearly every weekday in the United States since November 8, 1965. It has since been syndicated to many countries around...
(airing since 1965) has recordings of all its episodes, and The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...
(airing since 1973) – along with cancelled soaps Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows is a gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971. The show was created by Dan Curtis. The story bible, which was written by Art Wallace, does not mention any supernatural elements...
(1966–1971) and Ryan's Hope
Ryan's Hope
Ryan's Hope is an American soap opera, revolving around 13 years of trials and tribulations within a large Irish American family in the Riverside district of New York City. It aired from July 7, 1975 to January 13, 1989 on ABC...
(1975–1989) – saved most of their episodes despite the fact that they debuted during the 1960s and 1970s, before retaining tapes became common practice. Episodes of other soaps broadcast during the 1950s to 1970s do exist and have been showcased on various websites. The first two episodes of Days exist on their original master tapes, and were aired by SOAPnet in 2005.
The long-running soap opera Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera which premiered on September 3, 1951 on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast it was the...
, which aired from 1951–1986, is a quintessential example of a soap that was wiped. While scattered episodes from the 1950s and 1960s survive on kinescopes, many episodes of the CBS (later NBC) soap from the 1970s were erased after their broadcasts in order to shoot more episodes, due to the high cost of videotapes at the time. In many cases, at least a decade is missing. All episodes of Search
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
in the late 1980s.
As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
and The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night is an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984...
aired live until 1975, the year Edge moved to ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and ATWT expanded from a 30-minute broadcast to one hour. Both shows began taping episodes in preparation for the move of Edge to ABC; Edge
Agnes Nixon
Agnes Nixon
Agnes Nixon is an American writer and producer. She attended Northwestern University where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, and is best known as the creator of soap operas such as One Life to Live and All My Children...
initially produced her series One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...
and All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
through her own production company, Creative Horizons, Inc., and kept a complete archive of monochrome kinescopes until ABC bought the shows from her in 1975. When the network wanted to expand Children from 30 minutes to a full hour in the late 1970s, Nixon agreed on the condition that the network would begin saving the episodes. ABC complied, and full hour broadcasts began on April 22, 1977. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the vast majority of the early-1970s kinescopes, leaving only a few episodes from each season. Children episodes from its first year on the air (1970–1971) were seen on ABC in the 1990s and on SOAPnet in February 2005, the latter in celebration of the show's 35th anniversary. A 1969 episode of OLTL was featured on the now-defunct World of Soap Themes website, and at least one episode from the late 1960s exists in color.
Procter and Gamble started saving their shows around 1978. Very few pre-1978 color episodes of the P&G-sponsored shows survive, with most extant episodes preserved as monochrome kinescopes; in addition, a number of 1970s shows recorded by viewers using early VCR technology have surfaced on a number of websites in recent years.
Many black-and-white episodes of Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
survive as kinescopes; although the quality of these films has degraded to the point where in some cases the video is too dark to be worth viewing, the audio quality is fine. A number of kinescopes from 1966, the year Light
There are only three known surviving black-and-white episodes of Another World
Another World (TV series)
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It ran for a total of 35 years. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J...
from 1964 at the Paley Center for Media. Another known AW episode available was a black-and-white kinescope from 1968, on the WoST website.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive holds a large amount of daytime television airings that were spared from the wiping practice. Virtually all episodes of General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
from its premiere in April 1963 through August 1970 are archived at UCLA. Also archived there are handfuls of episodes of each soap opera (that was on the air at the time) from 1971 and 1973, including long-forgotten series such A World Apart
A World Apart (TV series)
A World Apart is an American daytime drama which ran from March 30, 1970 to June 25, 1971 on the ABC television network.-Overview:The initial stories were written by Katherine Phillips, adopted daughter of soap legend Irna Phillips...
, Where the Heart Is
Where the Heart Is (1969 TV series)
Where the Heart Is is an American soap opera telecast on the CBS television network from September 8, 1969 to March 23, 1973. Created by Lou Scofield and Margaret DePriest, the program ran for 25 minutes, the remaining five minutes of its timeslot ceded to a CBS news break.Scofield and DePriest...
, and Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place (TV series)
Return to Peyton Place is an American daytime soap opera which aired on NBC from April 3, 1972 to January 4, 1974. The series was a spin-off of the primetime drama series Peyton Place rather than an adaptation of the 1959 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious.The storylines from the daytime...
.
DuMont programs
It is believed that virtually the entire archive of the DuMont Television NetworkDuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
, covering its whole history from 1946–1956, was disposed of during the 1970s by a "successor" broadcaster (believed to be ABC) through dumping all of the kinescopes/videotapes into the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
to make room for other tapes at a New York City warehouse. Further, a large number of DuMont's kinescopes were destroyed circa 1958 for their silver content.
Although approximately 350 or so episodes of DuMont programming are known to exist, this is minuscule in comparison to the sheer number of programs, totaling 20,000+ episodes, which were dumped.
The Tonight Show
Almost all of The Tonight ShowThe Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
with Jack Paar
Jack Paar
Jack Harold Paar was an author, American radio and television comedian and talk show host, best known for his stint as host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962...
and the first ten years hosted by his successor Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
were taped over by the network, which is why Carson's late 1960s shows looked muddy compared to his competitor Dick Cavett
Dick Cavett
Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues...
on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
; NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
was using the Tonight Show tapes repeatedly.
Early sporting events
Many early sporting events, such as the World SeriesWorld Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
and the first two Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
s, were also lost, though a nearly intact recording of the first Super Bowl was found recently.
Super Bowls
Super Bowl ISuper Bowl I
The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, later known as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporary reports as the Supergame, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California.The National Football League ...
was aired by both CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
(the only Super Bowl to be aired by two networks), but neither network felt the need to preserve the game long-term; CBS saved the telecast for a few months and reran it as filler programming at least once before wiping it. A color videotape containing the first, second and fourth quarters of the telecast from WYOU
WYOU
WYOU is the CBS-affiliated television station for Northeastern Pennsylvania that is licensed to Scranton. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 13 from a transmitter at the Penobscot Knob tower farm near Mountain Top...
(the CBS affiliate for Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
) was found in 2005 and is in the process of being restored. Super Bowl II
Super Bowl II
The second AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, later to be known as Super Bowl II, was played on January 14, 1968 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida....
was aired exclusively by CBS and is also believed to have been erased. Though the telecast of Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...
exists in full color, only half of the Super Bowl IV
Super Bowl IV
Super Bowl IV was the fourth AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, and the second one to officially bear the name "Super Bowl"...
broadcast does (the rest was preserved by Canadian television in black-and-white), and the status of most of Super Bowl V
Super Bowl V
Super Bowl V was an American football game played on January 17, 1971, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, to decide the National Football League champion following the 1970 regular season...
remains unknown. It was not until Super Bowl VI
Super Bowl VI
Super Bowl VI was an American football game played on January 16, 1972, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana to decide the National Football League champion following the 1971 regular season...
that a continuous archive was established.
The National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
had its own filmmakers, NFL Films
NFL Films
NFL Films is a Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based company devoted to producing commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries on the National Football League, as well as other unrelated major events and awards shows...
, filming the game with its own equipment, and preserving its own telecast on tape was not seen as a priority when another source was available – though the networks' play-by-play comments, as a result, was lost.
World Series telecasts
All telecasts of World Series games starting in 19751975 World Series
The 1975 World Series was played between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds . It has been ranked by ESPN as the second-greatest World Series ever played...
(Reds
1975 Cincinnati Reds season
The 1975 Cincinnati Reds season was a season in American baseball. It consisted of the Reds winning the National League West with a record of 108-54, 20 games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Reds went on to win the National League Championship Series by defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in...
-Red Sox
1975 Boston Red Sox season
The Boston Red Sox season was a season in American baseball. It involved the Red Sox finishing first in the American League East with a record of 95 wins and 65 losses...
) are known to exist in full. Follows is the known footage of World Series telecasts prior to 1975:
- 19521952 World SeriesThe 1952 World Series featured the three-time defending champion New York Yankees beating the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games. The Yankees won their fourth straight title—tying the mark they set between 1936 and 1939 under manager Joe McCarthy, and Casey Stengel became the second manager in Major...
(Yankees1952 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 50th season for the Yankees in New York and their 52nd overall, going back to their origins in Baltimore. The team finished with a record of 95-59, winning their 19th pennant, finishing 2 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. New York was managed by Casey...
-Dodgers1952 Brooklyn Dodgers seasonThe Brooklyn Dodgers rebounded from the heartbreaking ending of 1951 to win the National League pennant by four games over the New York Giants. However, they dropped the World Series in seven games to the New York Yankees...
) - Games 6-7 are intact. - 19551955 World SeriesThe 1955 World Series matched the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees, with the Dodgers winning the Series in seven games to capture their first championship in franchise history. It would be the only Series the Dodgers won in Brooklyn . The last time the Brooklyn franchise won a World...
(Yankees1955 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the team's 53rd season in New York, and its 55th season overall. The team finished with a record of 96-58, winning their 21st pennant, finishing 3 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. New York was managed by Casey Stengel. The Yankees played their home games at...
-Dodgers1955 Brooklyn Dodgers seasonIn , the Brooklyn Dodgers finally fulfilled the promise of many previous Dodger teams. Although the club had won several pennants in the past, and had won as many as 105 games in 1953, it had never won a World Series. This team finished 13.5 games ahead in the National League pennant race, leading...
) - Only the first half of Game 5 is known to exist. - 19561956 World SeriesThe 1956 World Series of Major League Baseball was played between the New York Yankees and the defending champion Brooklyn Dodgers during the month of October 1956. The Series was a rematch of the 1955 World Series...
(Yankees1956 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 54th season for the team in New York, and its 56th season overall. The team finished with a record of 97-57, winning their 22nd pennant, finishing 9 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. New York was managed by Casey Stengel. The Yankees played their home games...
-Dodgers1956 Brooklyn Dodgers seasonThe 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers edged out the Milwaukee Braves to win the National League title. The Dodgers again faced the New York Yankees in the World Series...
) - Only the last three innings of Game 2 are known to exist. Game 3 is intact minus the second and third inning. Game 5 (Don LarsenDon LarsenDonald James Larsen is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. During a 15-year baseball career, he pitched from 1953-67 for seven different teams. Larsen is best known for pitching the sixth perfect game in baseball history, doing so in game 5 of the 1956 World Series...
's perfect game) is intact minus the first inning, and was aired on January 1, 2009 during the MLB NetworkMLB NetworkMLB Network is an American television specialty channel dedicated to professional baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball. Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications have minority ownership of the new network, with MLB retaining a controlling two-thirds share...
's first broadcast day. - 19571957 World SeriesThe 1957 World Series featured the defending champions, the New York Yankees , playing against the Milwaukee Braves . After finishing just one game behind the N.L. Champion Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, the Braves came back in 1957 to win their first pennant since moving from Boston in 1953...
(Yankees1957 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 55th season for the team in New York, and its 57th season overall. The team finished with a record of 98-56 to win their 23rd pennant, finishing eight games ahead of the Chicago White Sox. New York was managed by Casey Stengel...
–Braves1957 Milwaukee Braves seasonThe Milwaukee Braves season was the year that the team won its first and only World Series championship while based in Milwaukee. The Braves won 95 games and lost 59 to win the National League pennant by eight games over the second-place St. Louis Cardinals....
) - Game 3 is intact, minus a snip of Tony KubekTony KubekAnthony Christopher "Tony" Kubek is a retired American professional baseball player and television broadcaster....
's second home run in the top 7th inning. Games 6 (most of the first six innings) and 7 reportedly exist as well. - 19601960 World SeriesThe 1960 World Series was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League and the New York Yankees of the American League from October 5 to October 13, 1960...
(Yankees1960 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 58th season for the team in New York, and its 60th season overall. The team finished with a record of 97-57, winning its 25th pennant, finishing 8 games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. New York was managed by Casey Stengel. The Yankees played their home games at...
–Pirates1960 Pittsburgh Pirates seasonThe 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates season was the team's 79th season. The team finished with a record of 95-59, seven games in front of the second-place Milwaukee Braves to win their first National League championship in 33 seasons...
) - Game 7 (with Bill MazeroskiBill MazeroskiWilliam Stanley Mazeroski , nicknamed "Maz", is a former Major League Baseball player who spent his entire career with the Pittsburgh Pirates...
's series-clinching walkoff home run) was found intact on kinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
in December 2009 in the wine cellar of Pirates' part-owner Bing CrosbyBing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, who had the game recorded at his own expense. MLB Network aired it in December 2010. - 19611961 World SeriesThe 1961 World Series matched the New York Yankees against the Cincinnati Reds , with the Yankees winning in five games to earn their 19th championship in 39 seasons. This World Series was surrounded by Cold War political puns pitting the "Reds" against the "Yanks"...
(Yankees1961 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 59th season for the team in New York, and its 61st season overall. The team finished with a record of 109-53, eight games ahead of the Detroit Tigers, and won their 26th American League pennant. New York was managed by Ralph Houk. The Yankees played their home...
–Reds1961 Cincinnati Reds seasonThe Cincinnati Reds season was a season in American baseball. It consisted of the Reds winning the National League pennant with a record of 93-61, four games over the runner-up Los Angeles Dodgers, but losing the World Series in five games to the New York Yankees. The Reds were managed by Fred...
) - Half-hour segments of Games 3 (the first two innings), 4 (the 4th and 5th innings), and 5 (open and top of the 1st inning) are known to exist. - 19631963 World SeriesThe 1963 World Series matched the two-time defending champion New York Yankees against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the Dodgers sweeping the Series in four games to capture their second title in five years, and their third in franchise history....
(Yankees1963 New York Yankees seasonThe New York Yankees season was the 61st season for the team in New York, and its 63rd season overall. The team finished with a record of 104-58, winning their 28th pennant, finishing 10½ games ahead of the Chicago White Sox. New York was managed by Ralph Houk.The Yankees played at Yankee Stadium...
–Dodgers1963 Los Angeles Dodgers seasonThe Los Angeles Dodgers were led by pitcher Sandy Koufax, who won both the Cy Young Award and the Most Valuable Player Award. The team went 99–63 to win the National League title by six games over the runner-up St...
) - Game 3 is intact. - 19651965 World SeriesThe 1965 World Series featured the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers against the American League champion Minnesota Twins, who had won their first pennant since 1933 when the team was known as the Washington Senators...
(Twins1965 Minnesota Twins seasonThe Minnesota Twins won the 1965 American League pennant with a 102-60 record. It was the team's first pennant since moving to Minnesota, and the 102 wins was a team record.- Regular season :...
–Dodgers1965 Los Angeles Dodgers seasonThe Los Angeles Dodgers finished the regular-season with a 97–65 record, which earned them the NL pennant by just two games over their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants...
) - All seven games were preserved by the CBCCBC TelevisionCBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
on kinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
. - 19681968 World SeriesThe 1968 World Series featured the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals against the Detroit Tigers, with the Tigers winning in seven games for their first championship since 1945, and the third in their history...
(Tigers1968 Detroit Tigers seasonThe Detroit Tigers won the 1968 World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3. The 1968 baseball season, known as the "Year of the Pitcher," was the Tigers' 68th since they entered the American League in 1901, their eighth pennant, and third World Series championship...
–Cardinals1968 St. Louis Cardinals seasonThe St. Louis Cardinals season was the team's 87th season in St. Louis, Missouri and its 77th season in the National League. The Cardinals went 97-65 during the season, winning their second consecutive NL pennant, this time by nine games over the San Francisco Giants. They lost in 7 games to the...
) - All seven games were preserved by the CBCCBC TelevisionCBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
on kinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
. - 19691969 World SeriesThe 1969 World Series was played between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles, with the Mets prevailing in five games to accomplish one of the greatest upsets in Series history, as that particular Orioles squad was considered to be one of the finest ever...
(Orioles1969 Baltimore Orioles seasonThe 1969 Baltimore Orioles season was a season in American baseball. In the first season after the American League was split into two divisions, the Orioles won the first-ever American League East title, finishing first with a record of 109 wins and 53 losses, 19 games ahead of the runner-up...
–Mets1969 New York Mets seasonThe New York Mets season was the eighth season for the Mets franchise, which played its home games at Shea Stadium. Managed by Gil Hodges, the team went 100-62, finishing first in the newly-established National League East by eight games over the Chicago Cubs...
) - Games 1-2 were preserved by the CBCCBC TelevisionCBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
on kinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
, while Games 3-5 exist on their original color videotape from "truck feeds". - 19701970 World Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 10, 1970 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, OhioThe Jackson 5 performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to the game, which almost became an embarrassment when the group realized shortly before their performance that they weren't familiar with the lyrics...
(Orioles1970 Baltimore Orioles seasonThe Baltimore Orioles season involved the Orioles finishing first in the American League East with a record of 108 wins and 54 losses, 15 games ahead of the runner-up New York Yankees. The Orioles swept the Minnesota Twins for the second straight year in the American League Championship Series...
–Reds1970 Cincinnati Reds seasonThe 1970 Cincinnati Reds season consisted of the Reds winning the National League West title with a record of 102-60, 14½ games ahead of the runner-up Los Angeles Dodgers. The Reds defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in three straight games in the 1970 National League Championship Series to win their...
) - Games 1-4 were preserved by the CBCCBC TelevisionCBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
on kinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
, while Game 5 exists on its original color videotape from the "truck feed". - 19711971 World SeriesThe 1971 World Series matched the defending champion Baltimore Orioles against the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the Pirates winning in seven games. Game 4, played in Pittsburgh, was the first-ever World Series game scheduled to be played at night....
(Orioles1971 Baltimore Orioles seasonIn , the Baltimore Orioles finished first in the American League East, with a record of 101 wins and 57 losses. As of 2010, the 1971 Orioles are the last Major League Baseball club to have four 20-game winners in a season: Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson.- Offseason :*...
-Pirates1971 Pittsburgh Pirates seasonThe Pittsburgh Pirates season was a season in American baseball. It involved the Pirates finishing first in the National League East with a record of 97 wins and 65 losses. They defeated the San Francisco Giants three games to one in the National League Championship Series and beat the Baltimore...
) - Games 1-2 and 6-7 are intact, while Games 3-5 only partially exist and Game 4 is near-complete. - 19721972 World SeriesThe 1972 World Series matched the American League champion Oakland Athletics against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds, with the A's winning in seven games. These two teams would meet again in the fall classic eighteen years later...
(A's1972 Oakland Athletics seasonThe Oakland Athletics season involved the A's winning the American League West with a record of 93 wins and 62 losses. In the playoffs, they defeated the Detroit Tigers in a five-game ALCS, followed by a seven-game World Series, in which they defeated the Cincinnati Reds for their first World...
-Reds1972 Cincinnati Reds seasonThe Cincinnati Reds season consisted of the Reds winning the National League West title with a record of 95-59, 10½ games over the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers. They defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1972 National League Championship Series, but lost to the Oakland Athletics in...
) - Game 4 is intact, along with nearly all of Game 5 and a fair chunk of Game 2. Fragments exist for Games 1, 3, and 6, while Game 7 is missing. - 19731973 World SeriesThe 1973 World Series matched the defending champion Oakland Athletics against the New York Mets, with the A's winning in seven games to repeat as World Champions....
(A's1972 Oakland Athletics seasonThe Oakland Athletics season involved the A's winning the American League West with a record of 93 wins and 62 losses. In the playoffs, they defeated the Detroit Tigers in a five-game ALCS, followed by a seven-game World Series, in which they defeated the Cincinnati Reds for their first World...
-Mets1972 New York Mets seasonThe New York Mets season was the 11th regular season for the Mets, who played home games at Shea Stadium. Led by manager Yogi Berra, the team had a 83-73 record yielding a third place finish in the National League's Eastern Division.- Death of Gil Hodges :...
) - Game 1 is intact, Game 2 is missing the last inning and a half (including both Mike AndrewsMike AndrewsMichael Jay Andrews is a retired American Major League Baseball infielder who played for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics. He is currently the chairman of The Jimmy Fund, an event fundraising organization affiliated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston,...
plays), Game 3 is complete minus the last inning, Game 4 is intact from the pregame show to the top of the 4th inning, and Game 5 only has the last two innings. Game 6 is missing, while Game 7 cuts off with one out at the top of the 9th inning.- While the last inning and a half of Game 2 is missing from the Major League Baseball/NBC copy, the Andrews plays (totaling about 60 seconds of coverage) survived because after the World Series, NBC put together a 20-minute presentation tape narrated by Curt GowdyCurt GowdyCurtis Edward "Curt" Gowdy was an American sportscaster, well known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally-televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:The son of a manager for the Union Pacific railroad,...
to submit to the Peabody Awards in order to get consideration for an award for their coverage by the committee; the tape includes the two Andrews plays with Gowdy and Tony KubekTony KubekAnthony Christopher "Tony" Kubek is a retired American professional baseball player and television broadcaster....
's calls and analysis of them. The presentation tape is held by the Peabody vault, creating a case where "reconstructing" a game in an incomplete format would require going to two different outlets.
- While the last inning and a half of Game 2 is missing from the Major League Baseball/NBC copy, the Andrews plays (totaling about 60 seconds of coverage) survived because after the World Series, NBC put together a 20-minute presentation tape narrated by Curt Gowdy
- 19741974 World Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 12, 1974 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CaliforniaReggie Jackson put the A's on the board first with a solo homer in the top of the second off 20-game winner Andy Messersmith...
(A's1974 Oakland Athletics seasonThe Oakland Athletics season involved the A's winning their fourth consecutive American League West title with a record of 90 wins and 72 losses...
-Dodgers1974 Los Angeles Dodgers seasonThe Los Angeles Dodgers won the National League West by four games over the Cincinnati Reds, then beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1974 National League Championship Series before losing to the Oakland Athletics in the 1974 World Series.- Offseason :...
) - Games 1-4 are complete, but Game 5 is missing.
League Championship Series telecasts
For the League Championship Series telecasts spanning from 1969–1975, only Game 2 of the 1972 American League Championship Series1972 American League Championship Series
-Game 1:Saturday, October 7, 1972 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, CaliforniaGame 1 pitted ace pitchers Catfish Hunter for the A's and Mickey Lolich for the Tigers, and, as expected, both were brilliant...
(Oakland
1972 Oakland Athletics season
The Oakland Athletics season involved the A's winning the American League West with a record of 93 wins and 62 losses. In the playoffs, they defeated the Detroit Tigers in a five-game ALCS, followed by a seven-game World Series, in which they defeated the Cincinnati Reds for their first World...
-Detroit
1972 Detroit Tigers season
The Detroit Tigers won the American League East division championship with a record of 86-70 , finishing one-half game ahead of the Boston Red Sox. They played one more game than the Red Sox due to a scheduling quirk caused by the 1972 Major League Baseball strike -- a game which turned out to...
) is known to exist, however the copy on the trade circuit is missing the Bert Campaneris
Bert Campaneris
Dagoberto Campaneris Blanco , nicknamed "Campy", is a former shortstop in Major League Baseball who played for four American League teams, primarily the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics...
-Lerrin LaGrow
Lerrin LaGrow
Lerrin Harris LaGrow was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played 10 seasons in the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers , St...
brawl.
There are some instances where the only brief glimpse of telecast footage of an early LCS game can be seen in a surviving newscast from that night.
- The last out of the 1973 National League Championship Series1973 National League Championship Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 6, 1973 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, OhioThe starting pitchers, New York's Tom Seaver and Cincinnati's Jack Billingham, produced a classic pitcher's duel in Game 1. The Mets threatened in the first, loading the bases with one out, but Cleon Jones grounded into a...
as described by Jim SimpsonJim Simpson (sportscaster)Jim Simpson is a retired American sportscaster, known for his smooth delivery as a play-by-play man and his versatility in covering many different sports. In 1997, he won the Sports Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2000 he was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters...
was played on that night's NBC Nightly NewsNBC Nightly NewsNBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
, but other than that the entire game is gone. - On the day the New York Mets1969 New York Mets seasonThe New York Mets season was the eighth season for the Mets franchise, which played its home games at Shea Stadium. Managed by Gil Hodges, the team went 100-62, finishing first in the newly-established National League East by eight games over the Chicago Cubs...
and Baltimore Orioles1969 Baltimore Orioles seasonThe 1969 Baltimore Orioles season was a season in American baseball. In the first season after the American League was split into two divisions, the Orioles won the first-ever American League East title, finishing first with a record of 109 wins and 53 losses, 19 games ahead of the runner-up...
wrapped up their respective League Championship Series in 1969, a feature story on the CBS Evening NewsCBS Evening NewsCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
showed telecast clips of the ALCS1969 American League Championship Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 4, 1969 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, MarylandIn the opener, 20-game winner Jim Perry held a 3–2 lead over the Orioles entering the ninth inning, Boog Powell tied the score with a smash over the right-field fence. Reliever Ron Perranoski, who worked in all three games,...
game (albeit with no original sound). This is all that likely remains of anything from that third game of the Orioles1969 Baltimore Orioles seasonThe 1969 Baltimore Orioles season was a season in American baseball. In the first season after the American League was split into two divisions, the Orioles won the first-ever American League East title, finishing first with a record of 109 wins and 53 losses, 19 games ahead of the runner-up...
-Twins1969 Minnesota Twins seasonLed by new manager Billy Martin, the Minnesota Twins won the newly formed American League West with a 97-65 record, nine games over the second-place Oakland Athletics...
series.
While all telecasts of World Series games starting with 1975
1972 World Series
The 1972 World Series matched the American League champion Oakland Athletics against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds, with the A's winning in seven games. These two teams would meet again in the fall classic eighteen years later...
are accounted for and exist, the LCS is still a spotty situation through the late 1970s:
- 1976 ALCS1976 American League Championship Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 9, 1976 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City, MissouriThe opener was played on a bright Saturday afternoon at Royals Stadium and pitted Yankee ace Jim “Catfish” Hunter against left-hander and ex-Yankee Larry Gura. The Yankees got off to a quick start scoring two in the first...
- Game 5 is intact, from the ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
vault. - 1976 NLCS1976 National League Championship Series-Game 1:Saturday, October 9, 1976 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaReds starter Don Gullett held the Phils to two hits in eight strong innings and helped his own cause with an RBI single in the sixth and a two-run double in the eighth...
- Game 3 is intact, albeit an off-air recording taped in the Portland marketKATUKATU, virtual channel 2, also known as K2, is an ABC-affiliated television station broadcasting on digital channel 43 in Portland, Oregon, USA. It has been owned by Fisher Communications of Seattle, Washington, which has been the owner of the Seattle's ABC affiliate KOMO-TV, ever since it began...
. Apparently, this copy is the only extant version because the ABC vault copy has no sound. - 1977 NLCS1977 National League Championship Series-Game 1:Tuesday, October 4, 1977 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CaliforniaThe Phillies took the opening game of the series, winning their first postseason game since Game 1 of the 1915 World Series...
- Game 3 is intact, from the Philadelphia Phillies1977 Philadelphia Phillies seasonThe 1977 Philadelphia Phillies season was the 95th season in the history of the franchise. The Phillies won their second consecutive National League East division title with a record of 101-61, five games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Phillies lost the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers, three...
' local NBC affiliateKYW-TVKYW-TV, virtual channel 3, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. KYW-TV shares a studio facility with its sister station, CW flagship WPSG just north of Center City Philadelphia...
. A copy is held by Major League Baseball, who also appears to have Game 4 as well. - 1977 ALCS1977 American League Championship Series-Game 1:Wednesday, October 5, 1977 at Yankee Stadium in Bronx, New YorkThe visiting Royals jumped on the sore-shouldered Don Gullett early and never looked back. Hal McRae hit a two-run homer in the first, Freddie Patek had a two-run double in the second, and John Mayberry a two-run blast in the...
- Game 5 is intact, with both the WPIX and NBC versions existing through off-air recordings.- Clips of these games may be seen in highlight shows or programs such as YankeeographyYankeeographyYankeeography is a biography-style television program that chronicles the lives and careers of the players, coaches, and other notable personnel associated with the New York Yankees Major League Baseball team. The series is aired on the YES Network and is produced by MLB Productions . The series is...
. It is believed that incomplete tapes of the ALCS exist. It is possible these games are not shown in part because the audio quality is poor. A common method of getting around such deficiencies would be to overlay a radio telecast or narration by a player or commentator where gaps exist.
- Clips of these games may be seen in highlight shows or programs such as Yankeeography
- 1978 ALCS1978 American League Championship Series-Game 1:Tuesday, October 3, 1978 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City, MissouriPrior to the start of this game, both teams had to deal with bad news. Ron Guidry, he of the incredible 25–3 Cy Young Award-winning season, would be unavailable to start until Game 4, if played, at least...
- All four games (ABC version) are intact via off-air recordings. - 1978 NLCS1978 National League Championship Series-Game 1:Wednesday, October 4, 1978 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaBecause of having to start an NL East-clinching game a few days earlier, Phillies ace Steve Carlton wasn't available for the start of the series, leaving the task to Larry Christenson...
- Game 4 is intact, again from off-air recordings.
NBA Finals
1973: Knicks-Lakers - Games 1-4 is missing, while Game 5 only has the final 2 minutes of the game.Early live shows
Many programs in the early days in television were broadcast live and never recorded in the first place; while they are also lost forever, they in fact were not wiped programs because they were never recorded. Most prime-time programs were preserved by the kinescope recordingKinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
process, which involved filming the live broadcast from a television screen using a motion-picture camera (videotape, for recording programs, was not perfected until the late 1950s and was not widely used until the late 1960s). This was also a common practice for broadcasting live TV shows to the west coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, as performers often performed a show back-to-back, but never back-to-back-to-back.
Daytime programs, however, were generally not kinescoped for preservation (although many were temporarily kinescoped for later broadcast, episodes recorded in this way were often junked). Many local station and network newscasts were prone to wiping.
News
Some early news programs, such as Camel News CaravanCamel News Caravan
The Camel News Caravan was a 15 minute American television news program aired by NBC News from February 14, 1949 to October 26, 1956. Sponsored by the Camel cigarette brand and anchored by John Cameron Swayze, it was the first NBC news program to use NBC filmed news stories rather than movie...
, are largely lost. Moving images of Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
reading the news in his studio every night for six years are gone with the exception of his coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
in 1962 and the JFK assassination in 1963. Studio shots of Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...
inside his ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
studio during his first year there (1965) are also gone.
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
has kept all evening national news telecasts since Monday, August 5, 1968.
As of 1997, CBS had saved 1,000,000 videotapes of news reports, broadcasts, stock footage, and outtakes according to a report that year from the National Film Preservation Board
National Film Preservation Board
The United States National Film Preservation Board is the board selecting films for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It was established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988...
. The same report added, "Television stations still erase and recycle their video cassettes", referring to local news programs.http://www.loc.gov/film/tvstudy.html Many local stations contract with outside companies for archiving news coverage.
Situation comedy
Little of the first sitcom, The Mary Kay and Johnny ShowMary Kay and Johnny
Mary Kay and Johnny is the first situation comedy broadcast on network television in the United States. Starring real-life married couple Mary Kay Stearns and Johnny Stearns, the series is the first program to show a couple sharing a bed, and the first television series to show a woman's pregnancy...
, remains today. It was initially live and not recorded, but later in its run kinescopes were made for rebroadcasting. Fragments of episodes and one complete installment are known to exist.
Game shows
Game showsGame show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
, more than any other genre, were prone to wiping. Many games between 1941 and 1980 had insignificantly-short runs (some measured in a span of weeks or even days) that the networks felt it unnecessary to keep them for posterity, whereas recycling the tapes would be more profitable and less of an effort than attempting to sell the series in reruns, in an era before cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
.
Mark Goodson
Mark Goodson
Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...
–Bill Todman
Bill Todman
William S. "Bill" Todman was an American television producer born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest running shows with business partner Mark Goodson.-Early life:...
Productions (and to a lesser extent, Barry-Enright Productions
Barry & Enright Productions
Barry & Enright Productions , was a United States television production company that was formed in 1947 by Jack Barry and Dan Enright.-History:Jack Barry and Dan Enright first met at radio station WOR in New York, where...
and Chuck Barris Productions
Chuck Barris Productions
Barris Industries, Inc. was an American television production company that was started in 1965 by Chuck Barris as Chuck Barris Productions...
) had the foresight to preserve many of their games for later reruns; for years, these shows dominated the Game Show Network
Game Show Network
The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...
(GSN) line-up.
Most other game shows from that era were not so fortunate. Almost all of the Bob Stewart
Bob Stewart (television)
Bob Stewart is a former American television game show producer. He was active in the TV industry from 1956 until his retirement in 1992....
, Heatter–Quigley
Heatter-Quigley Productions
Heatter-Quigley Productions was an American television production company that was launched in 1960 by two former television writers, Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley....
, Hatos–Hall
Stefan Hatos-Monty Hall Productions
Stefan Hatos-Monty Hall Productions was a television production company responsible for producing several American game shows in the 1970s and 1980s...
(except for a large portion of Let's Make a Deal
Let's Make a Deal
Let's Make a Deal is a television game show which originated in the United States and has since been produced in many countries throughout the world. The show is based around deals offered to members of the audience by the host. The traders usually have to weigh the possibility of an offer being...
), and pre-1980 Merv Griffin
Merv Griffin
Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...
productions have been destroyed, with the exception of a few rare pilots and "cast aside" episodes. The few remaining episodes have therefore become collectors' items, and an active trading circuit exists among collectors.
NBC and ABC continued the wiping process well into the 1970s; while ABC ceased in early 1978, NBC continued to wipe some shows into 1980, leaving much of their daytime game show content lost forever. CBS abandoned the wiping process by September 1972, largely as a result of their collaboration with Goodson-Todman; as a result, even the network's shorter-lived games (such as Spin-Off) still exist in their entirety. Incidentally, all three networks ended their wiping programs during the time Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at the CBS, ABC and NBC networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo , All in the Family , The Waltons , and Charlie's Angels , as well as the...
led their respective networks.
While it remained in business, DuMont wished to keep its programs as intact as possible. However, the network ceased in 1956 and its archive was destroyed in the 1970s. The corporate successor to DuMont, Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, not only has never aired any daytime programming (other than its Fox Kids
Fox Kids
Fox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002. It was owned by Fox Television Entertainment airing programming on Monday–Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.Depending on the show, the...
block from 1990–2001) but debuted in 1986, well beyond the wiping era.
Examples of shows with a history of wiping include:
The $10,000/$20,000 Pyramid (CBS/ABC, 1973-1980)
Another example is Pyramid (renamed several times over the years with higher dollar amounts), which was on two networks (CBS from 1973–1974 and ABC from 1974–1980; beginning in January 1976, The $10,000 Pyramid became The $20,000 Pyramid).
Of those episodes that survived, three weeks from November 1973 (15 episodes) which were taped at CBS Television City
CBS Television City
CBS Television City is a television studio complex located in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles at 7800 Beverly Boulevard, at the corner of North Fairfax Avenue...
in Hollywood instead of the normal taping location, the Ed Sullivan Theater
Ed Sullivan Theater
The Ed Sullivan Theater, located at 1697-1699 Broadway between West 53rd and West 54th, in Manhattan, is a venerable radio and television studio in New York City...
in New York City, were spared (they exist as master copies). A few were also recorded on videotape from the original broadcast. Aside from clips seen in the openings of the existing $20,000 Pyramid episodes, no episodes of the ABC $10,000 Pyramid exist on videotape.
As ABC ceased destroying daytime programming at the beginning of 1978, the remainder of the run survives.
The Big Showdown (ABC, 1974-1975)
The Big Showdown
The Big Showdown
The Big Showdown is a game show that aired on the ABC television network from December 23, 1974 to July 4, 1975. Jim Peck, making his national television debut, was host with Dan Daniel, then a disc jockey on New York City's WHN radio, as announcer....
was one of several short-lived ABC series in the mid-1970s, during an era when the network was a distant competitor to NBC and CBS in the daytime department and rotated game shows quickly in and out of the line-up. It is notable for the fact that it has only two episodes surviving in full (the original pilot titled Showdown, and an episode in which host Jim Peck
Jim Peck
James Edward "Jim" Peck is an American television and radio personality based in Milwaukee and is perhaps best known for his time as a game show host.-Early career:...
slips and falls down the stairs during his introduction), along with a bonus round from another; what happened to the rest of the latter's origin episode is unknown.
Concentration (NBC/Syndicated, 1958-1978)
In the case of Concentration
Concentration (game show)
Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...
, which had a very long run (1958–1973 on NBC and 1973–1978 in syndication), it was believed that the NBC version was completely destroyed. However, it was reported in 1999 that both the Hugh Downs/Jack Barry/Ed McMahon/Bob Clayton run fully exists on kinescope and the Jack Narz run fully exists on videotape.
GSN tried to purchase the Narz and Alex Trebek episodes (Classic Concentration) prior to launching in 1994, but NBC refused for unknown reasons.
High Rollers (NBC, 1974-1976/1978-1980)
Another example is the original NBC network run of High Rollers
High Rollers
High Rollers is an American television game show based on the dice game Shut the Box. The show aired on NBC from July 1, 1974 to June 11, 1976 and again from April 24, 1978 to June 20, 1980. Two different syndicated versions were also produced, a weekly series in the 1975–1976 season which ran...
, where two episodes from the first run (1974–1976) are known to exist. Ten episodes from the 1978-1980 revival exist in personal collections, including the finale.
The Hollywood Squares (NBC/Syndicated, 1966-1981)
For a long time, it was thought that all but approximately the last two years of the original Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
were wiped until a large number of episodes, mostly from the short-lived 1968 NBC prime-time and long-running 1970s syndicated runs but including some daytime episodes (such as a 1977 Storybook Squares episode), were discovered.
GSN aired about 130 of these episodes from 2002–2003, and on two occasions left the NBC "In Living Color" peacock
NBC logos
The National Broadcasting Company has used several corporate logos over its history, yet the peacock is its most well known.-Microphone logo :...
intact; on one of those two occasions, the NBC "snake" logo was also left intact.
Jeopardy!Jeopardy!Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
(NBC/Syndicated, 1964-1975/1978-1979)
NBC destroyed the majority of the original series hosted by Art Fleming, however the show's 1975 finale used several clips from episodes not currently known to exist; this may mean that the network began destroying the run starting from the first show. Incomplete "paper records" of NBC games exist on microfilm at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, including two episodes featuring future Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
and Presidential candidate John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
as a contestant, as well as the Tournament of Champions wins by Hutton Gibson
Hutton Gibson
Hutton Peter Gibson is an American writer on Sedevacantism, World War II veteran, the 1968 Jeopardy! grand champion and the father of 11 children, one of whom is the actor and director Mel Gibson....
and Jay Wolpert
Jay Wolpert
Jay Wolpert is an American television producer and screenwriter.His first television appearance came as a contestant on the original version of Jeopardy! in 1969. He competed in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions that year and won....
.
According to Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows co-author Fred Wostbrock, the 1970s syndicated version and 1978-1979 revival are both intact on videotape. Of the original NBC series, approximately 15-20 episodes remain from its original 2,753 (including the 1964 "test" episode).
The Magnificent Marble Machine (NBC, 1975-1976)
Another Heatter–Quigley
Heatter-Quigley Productions
Heatter-Quigley Productions was an American television production company that was launched in 1960 by two former television writers, Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley....
show that was at one time believed to be extinct, which involved a giant pinball machine played by a contestant and their celebrity teammate. Only two full episodes are known to exist, along with footage shown during the 1979 film The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of a reporter and cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. It stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd, and Wilford Brimley.The film was...
.
Mindreaders (NBC, 1979-1980)
NBC also destroyed a majority of episodes from the Goodson-Todman game Mindreaders
Mindreaders
Mindreaders is a game show produced by Goodson-Todman Productions which aired on NBC from August 13, 1979 through January 11, 1980. Although NBC originally agreed to a 26-week run, the network canceled Mindreaders after 22 weeks...
, leaving the pilot, two full episodes, and the first two minutes of the New Year's Eve show. This was one of the few Goodson-Todman shows that has been lost to the process.
Password (CBS/ABC Daytime, 1961-1967/1971-1975)
The ABC version of Password is one of the few Goodson-Todman series that is almost gone. GSN aired a 1971 episode featuring Brett Somers and Jack Klugman. A 1972 studio master has also survived, along with three 1975 episodes (including the finale of Password All-Stars and the June 27 overall finale). UCLA also has a small number of episodes in their archives.
Both this version and most of the CBS daytime version is considered lost and/or destroyed. Most of the CBS nighttime version and final daytime year (the latter of which was produced in color) survive. The color episodes were edited for syndication, whose high ratings through 1970 convinced Goodson-Todman to revive the series.
The ABC version was supposedly wiped to record Richard Dawson's Family Feud
Family Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
, a common cause for the disappearance of many shows.
Second Chance (ABC, 1977)
The 1977 game Second Chance
Second Chance (game show)
Second Chance is an American game show that ran from March 7 to July 15, 1977 on ABC. Jim Peck hosted, with Jay Stewart and Jack Clark serving as announcers....
, the original version of the more popular Press Your Luck
Press Your Luck
Press Your Luck is an American television daytime game show created by Bill Carruthers and Jan McCormack. It premiered on September 19, 1983 on CBS and ended on September 26, 1986. In the show, contestants collected "spins" by answering trivia questions and then used the spins on an 18-space game...
, is believed to be completely destroyed. Only Pilot #3 and the series finale are known for certain to exist, the latter as an audio recording; several monochrome photographs of the set also exist.
Snap Judgment (NBC, 1967-1969)
The NBC game Snap Judgment, hosted by Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon
Edward Peter "Ed" McMahon, Jr. was an American comedian, game show host and announcer. He is most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson's sidekick and announcer on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992. He also hosted the original version of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995...
, is an example of a series that was completely destroyed by the wiping process. Only one full episode, plus an opening and a bonus round, are known to exist on audio tape.
Three on a Match (NBC, 1971-1974)
NBC destroyed a majority of the episodes from Three on a Match
Three on a Match (game show)
Three on a Match was an American television game show created by Bob Stewart that ran on NBC from August 2, 1971 to June 28, 1974 on its daytime schedule...
, with the exception of six episodes from 1973 and another five from 1974.
To Tell The Truth (CBS, 1956-1968)
An example of a casualty of wiping/non-preservation is the CBS daytime version of To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...
, which does not have a complete archive. A small number of episodes prior to 1966 still exist, three of which (two from 1964 and one from October 25, 1965) exist on film. The rest survive on videotape. It is believed a large number of episodes from 1966-1968 do exist. GSN has shown most of the surviving daytime episodes.
Wheel Of FortuneWheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
(NBC, 1975-1989)
NBC also destroyed the majority of the episodes hosted by Chuck Woolery, although about 15 circulate among collectors (the E! True Hollywood Story
E! True Hollywood Story
E! True Hollywood Story is an American documentary series on E! that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, TV shows and well-known public figures...
on the show featured clips from the 1974 pilots and 1975 premiere). It is unknown where precisely the network stopped destroying episodes, although it is likely they ceased in 1980 along with their other shows.
Winning Streak (NBC, 1974-1975)
A majority of the episodes from the NBC game show Winning Streak
Winning Streak (US game show)
Winning Streak is an American television game show hosted by Bill Cullen and announced by Don Pardo. It aired daily on NBC from July 1, 1974 to January 3, 1975 and was produced at the NBC Studios in New York's Rockefeller Plaza.-Gameplay:...
was completely erased by the network as well, with the exception of two episodes (the pilot and the August 9 episode). It is widely believed that the latter survived due to it being preempted in its original run for news reports on Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's resignation from the presidency. The first two minutes of the December 26 show were recovered in February 2010.
See also
- Doctor Who missing episodesDoctor Who missing episodesThe 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...
- British television Apollo 11 coverageBritish television Apollo 11 coverageBritish television coverage of Apollo 11, man's first mission to land on the moon, lasted from 16 to 24 July 1969 . All the then three UK channels BBC1, BBC2 and ITV provided extensive coverage...
- Missing Believed WipedMissing Believed WipedMissing 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....
- KinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
- Lost filmLost filmA 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 preservationFilm preservationthumb|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...
- List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts