TV Home Forum

So do the BBC still junk tapes even now?

(December 2007)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
DA
David
See the question 'How does the BBC decide what to keep in the archive today?' at the BBC Archive site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/ posted:
How does the BBC decide what to keep in the archive today?
At the moment, everything is recorded and everything is kept for a minimum of five years. But we do exercise a selection policy on that. We keep what you would expect us to keep, so all the drama is kept, all the entertainment is kept, all the very high value, expensive programmes to make. We keep our news, we keep all the current affairs. The areas where we tend to be more selective would be, for example, in a long-running quiz show, where it's really important to have examples of that, but we wouldn't necessarily keep them all for ever. Because when we're talking about keeping something here, we're saying we're going to keep it for ever and that's a big overhead to have.


Sorry if this was common knowledge but I had always assumed that the BBC had learnt from their mistakes and now kept everything. It turns out that they don't keep all episodes of 'long-running quiz shows'. I wonder what else they don'tbother keeping?
:-(
A former member
some Gameshow, who cares.

a better question is when did there actully start keeping everything, I sure someone around here said, even in 1993 some stupid man dumped alot of vision on
:-(
A former member
I disagree 623058.

Stuff is so cheap to retain these days that I feel it is madness to junk anything.

Look at Goodson-Todman in the US -- they kept all episodes of their 1970s gameshows, and they are still being repeated. They are (rightly) regarded as part of American culture.

Given that it is possible to retain a full, almost-uncompressed copy of a half-hour programme on a disc costing less than £20, why are the BBC still junking stuff?
BE
Ben Founding member
623058 posted:
some Gameshow, who cares.


*ahem* same could be said for certain original theme tunes.
:-(
A former member
Ben posted:
623058 posted:
some Gameshow, who cares.


*ahem* same could be said for certain original theme tunes.


I walked right into that one!

Catchphrase (tvs) is baldy wanted these days, but there is number of Gameshow which will no likes, the ones that flopped.
GM
nodnirG kraM
jason posted:
Given that it is possible to retain a full, almost-uncompressed copy of a half-hour programme on a disc costing less than £20, why are the BBC still junking stuff?

Time and money to convert to such a format?
JO
Johnny83
I think after what happened with Doctor Who (especially the Troughton years), Dixon Of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Hancock, etc. The BBC are much more careful about what they do and don't junk
:-(
A former member
don;t forget dads army and well Till death do us part.
JO
Johnny83
623058 posted:
don;t forget dads army and well Till death do us part.


Yes, I think Dad's Army however came out better than some of those, especially Z Cars Shocked
:-(
A former member
I know two are still missing form DA:

alot of the 2nd and 3rd are missing form Till death.

how many are missing from Z cars??
DA
David
623058 posted:
some Gameshow, who cares.


Remember when Barry George was convicted of killing Jill Dando? A clip surfaced showing him on a 80s regional news programme attempting to jump some double decker buses on rollerskates. Apparently he was also on The Big Breakfast doing a Freddie Mercury tribute act but I've never seen that clip.

Now imagine in 5,10 or 20 years time a former contestant on Egg Heads is convicted of murder (falsely or otherwise). Don't forget, statistically this is VERY likely to happen. Wouldn't it be a shame if the news programmes of the future couldn't show a clip of them beating CJ in a Geography round?

Is that what you want? Because thats whats going to happen.
JO
Joe
davidlees posted:
623058 posted:
some Gameshow, who cares.


Remember when Barry George was convicted of killing Jill Dando? A clip surfaced showing him on a 80s regional news programme attempting to jump some double decker buses on rollerskates. Apparently he was also on The Big Breakfast doing a Freddie Mercury tribute act but I've never seen that clip.

Now imagine in 5,10 or 20 years time a former contestant on Egg Heads is convicted of murder (falsely or otherwise). Don't forget, statistically this is VERY likely to happen. Wouldn't it be a shame if the news programmes of the future couldn't show a clip of them beating CJ in a Geography round?

Is that what you want? Because thats whats going to happen.


Just what I was going to say.

It could even be more trivial - a former contestant on a show one day wins the lottery or something. If a tape is destroyed, there goes the episode with them on.

Newer posts