missing belived wipe

on firday Night I come across this programme on BBC4, explaining how the BBC wiped alot of there tapes.
this made me wronder

Did ABC, ATV, Associated Rediffusion and Granda do teh same as BBC and wipe there taped or did ther keep there back cataloge, or is there a whole range of ITV shwo missing?

was it only comday show that were wiped by the bbc or was there others types

Huh?

is there missing episiode form ITV back catolog of shows?

This isn't a unique problem to these shores, programmes were also regularly wiped by the transmission companies in many other countries. The BBC, it is well documented, wiped large chunks of their programmes up until about 1978 and the most well known casualty of this policy is Doctor Who.

The ITV regions had much the same policy but as to how much of it survives depends on where you go. Granada has virtually a complete set of Coronation Street episodes, whereas only about 1500 episodes out of just over 4500 of (original) Crossroads survive.

Don't forget that over the years with all the merging and buyouts and changes that have happened, material isn't necessarily "lost" as in wiped, it's "lost" as in "not where it should be". Episodes of Doctor Who were found in the basement of a church at one point. Many catalogues, where their owners have merged with others, don't actually know what they've got in terms of archive footage/missing episodes for one reason or another either.

Have a crack at these 2 sites :

http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/xmb/

http://www.btinternet.com/~m.brown1/homepage.htm

They are more specialised in that sort of thing than this site.
(Nothing personal Asa !)