andrew markworthy
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Sep 30, 1999
- Messages
- 4,762
If you think that's bad, then wait til you hear what the BBC did ... [If you are remotely sensitive to the desecration of art, stop reading now]
Forget games shows. Until the late 1960s, the BBC gleefully erased plays (including specially commissioned works by famous contemporary playwrights), concert recitals (classical and pop), early episodes of Dr Who, interviews with the great and the good, etc, etc. Ostensibly this was to save money (the tapes once erased could be re-used) but I suspect it was simply bureaucracy gone mad. E.g. it's on record that Peter Cooke tried to save many of his early programmes from erasure by offering to buy replacement tapes, but he was turned down because it was against company policy. Thanks to this idiotic piece of pennypinching, there are large chunks of television history that have been lost for ever.