"Catchphrase - TVS, apparently all these old eps have been lost or destroyed, which upset us, as we would have loved to have acquired them. Unfortunately, this has proven to be the case with some other series that we've tried to acquire, extremely sad."
from the Challenge Forums
lets face it at the rate is going what else has been Destoryed? if tapes were still going missing in ealry 90;s then still no one has learnt a lession!
Now you see I'd tend to think the opposite, considering the fact as late as the turn of the decade we were still seing TVS-era Catchphrase on Challenge anyway, so they were last to have the tapes surely not? Also consider that alot of TVS stuff does still exist such as Art Attack (which Disney edited to bits) and Inspector Wexford which was on ITV3 not too long ago.
A shame if it is true.
:-(
A former member
it been 10 - 12 years since there where on challenge!
If the tapes were available 10 years ago it does seem completely absurd that they would have been wiped in the meantime. If there's any chance at all that Challenge would pay the owners good money to show them again it's madness to think someone would get rid of them. In the US, a number of classic gameshow series are still being shown from the 1970s -- surely they aren't
all
gone from this era over here?
Challenge seem to have stopped showing just about anything made before 1990 just recently. Pity.
I'd have liked to have seen Chain Letters repeated, and I'm pretty sure at least 50 eps are intact from several series. Surely that's enough?
This might fan a few flames but I spotted this on a web forum:
(straight lift, chopped a few irrelevant bits out, no vouch for its truthfulness, take with pinch of salt):
The TVS archive is owned by a number of different companies - the 'Ruth Rendells' were sold to Blue Heaven, 'Art Attack' to the Media Merchants', etc. The bulk of what's left went through IFE (parent company of The Family Channel) to Fox and ultimately to Disney, but there is no paperwork at Disney relating to TVS and both finding the material and getting it cleared for re-use is a NIGHTMARE. Physically, the majority of the TVS material is stored in the attic library at The Maidstone Studios and at Yorkshire Television in Leeds - in both cases by companies who have no rights over it!
It seems that the TVS archive went first to IFE, then to Saban - both of which were then taken over by Fox. Fox, in turn, was taken over by Disney in 2001, and there the trail ends - so the evidence points to Disney being the current owner of *most* of the TVS material. ... The fact that the archive, although residing physically in the UK, is in foreign ownership certainly complicates matters - as does the fact that Disney apparently has no TVS paperwork! And without the correct legal paperwork it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to clear programmes for commercial exploitation (repeats and DVD release).
So basically, the majority of TVS's archive probably resides at Maidstone, with the rest in Leeds - but no one there can touch it, basically. The situation with the archive of Southern Television (the forerunner of TVS and producer of the 1970s 'Famous Five' series) is similar: it is stored in this country but owned by an Australian company called Southern Star, which has no interest whatsoever in marketing any of it (other than 'Worzel Gummidge'). Indeed, they no longer even list 'The Famous Five' in their online programme catalogue. And like the TVS archive, its exact whereabouts is a matter of conjecture. I've read that a former Southern employee has indicated that it is still physically based in Hampshire, while someone else has indicated that it is located in a disused fire station in Kent (possibly near Maidstone). It has also been suggested that it may be located in the Maidstone TV studios (along with the TVS material) or in London (where Southern Star, the owners, have their UK office). Another possibility is that the Granada-owned Yorkshire Television archive in Leeds is acting as 'caretaker'. All this is very confusing, and I suppose it's possible that the Southern archive has been split up and scattered around different parts of the country!
Of course, the chief worry with such an 'absent landlord' approach to programme archiving is that the stored material will go into disrepair and eventually be junked... If TVS's and Southern's archives are not used (which they barely are) and there is a cost in maintaining them (be it in Leeds, Maidstone, London or wherever), this could certainly happen.
Just to complicate matters, was Fraggle Rock not a co-production with a Canadian broadcaster - I reckon CBC? I don't know if that makes things easier (because another broadcaster may be interested) or more difficult (because there's two broadcasters, and one no longer exists).