#TV show that never get rebroadcast,

Apparently for years there was a copyright issue with " Tutti Frutti " which is why it was only just released on DVD last year.

I'd like to see the 1998 drama series " The Passion " repeated - not to be confused with the later one. In this one Paul Nicholls arrives in a village as they prepare for their Easter Passion.

that depends on how desperate most people are to see Mr Chegwin's birthday suit

although cudos to him for doing it, doubt many other celebs would go for full frontal nudity

back on topic what about programmes which were never completed like After Henry or 2.4 children which ended when principal actors died

I think there have been a few comedy series down the years that have never really been repeated. Dad was quite a good sitcom from the late 90s, staring George Cole, I think the episodes only ever got aired once on BBC 1.

Thanks to the internet a lot of unrepeated/unreleased programmes end up becoming available through other means.

After Henry had its last series screened after the death of Joan Sanderson, but that series was completed before she died, so how you can claim it was "never completed" I don't know. It is said that had Sanderson not died a 5th TV series was pretty much guaranteed. The radio adaption airs on BBC Radio 7, but the entire TV run is now available on DVD so it's not like it isn't hiding in an archive somewhere.

As for 2.4 Children, it apparently shows up on GOLD on occasion but again, why do you say "never completed"? Gary Olsen died in 2000 and the show only wrapped up after his death but again that was between series.

The internet is the best way of making archive available to the public, either officially or unofficially. It's the same theory that drives much of e-commerce - the 'long tail theory' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail . Showing an obscure archive programme on TV requires all those who are interested in it being able to watch it on your channel at a certain time. Putting it online gives you an unlimited number of people to make it available to for an unlimited period of time.

STV's YouTube offering is a good example. The majority of it is fairly obscure and would stand no chance of being repeated on TV (even though there is presumably no legal barrier in doing so) but it's there online for anyone in the world to watch

One thing that has occurred to me a few times related to this subject is what happens when these programmes finally fall into the public domain, as they almost certainly will at some point.

Not only the successful / culturally-significant stuff; what about all the really obscure programming such as regional docs etc, many of which would, I'm sure, attract a very small but appreciative audience.

I note that some old Border Television programming has made it onto YouTube courtesy of the local film archive, I'm assuming with the consent of Border/ITV at some point ("Steam on the Settle and Carlisle" in particular was a very well-made documentary and I'm sure anyone with an interest in the industry would find it interesting).

Are we likely to see a flood of old programming becoming available on the net at some point? Presumably come 2030 or so technology will have advanced to the point where broadcast-quality files will be a trivial commodity to store online.

A Lot of the old ITV programmes from the 1960s are actually with National Achieve of film and television, I think bob monkhouse was a god-send to them.

I know a lot of Grampian programmes from that era went south ( I think there an office in Glasgow)

Gold should broadcast some more BBC comedys, its seems sometimes you got a chance with BBC 1 on a sunday morning, I remember "Three up, two down" in that slot.

Two other BIG sitcom are Don't wait up has never been repeated, and "you rang m'lord" which is timeless as it was set in 20s!

It was probably donated to them when Border started to wind down. There are quite a few regional film archives around the country which contain material (mainly film) from the BBC and ITV regions: http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/faf/

MACE at Leicester University ( http://www.macearchive.org ) has lots of old ATV and Central material, some of which is online and they've recently produced a DVD.

NRFTA has Tyne Tees/Border/Look North, this gives you an idea of what they have and the status of it http://www.nrfta.org.uk/collection.html

http://www.eafa.org.uk/ holds Look North and Anglia material and of course there's the SWFTA which was spun off from TSW

Looking through the 'Collections' descriptions on the various sites the archives don't necessarily hold the copyright to the donated films, neither are they necessarily viewable by the public

The National Film and Television Archive, run by the BFI has programmes from the BBC, ITV and C4 amongst others:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/nationalarchive/about/exploring/television.html including the entire archive of Associated-Rediffusion (although it's owned by someone else). I think that a lot of their BBC stuff was donated on old formats after it was transferred and held in the BBC's own archive.

Bob Monkhouse's film collection initially went to the BFI/NFTA but ended up with Kaleidoscope: http://www.kaleidoscope.org.uk/

Would love to have got my hands on the Monkhouse archive, such a wide-range of rare vintage footage.

Good whack of it is or belong to the BBC and ITV, so I dare say there own the rights to them?

Are you watching this programme about it on BBC4? Absolutely incredible what he kept - not just TV/radio programmes and films but things like scripts and every issue of the TV Times annotated with corrected details. He even had all the contestant cards from The Golden Shot.