| Why are so many
programmes missing?
When BBC TV first broadcast in
1936 there was no videotape recording, programmes were broadcast
live. Predictably, very, very little survives from the early
days of British television and what does survive was preserved
on film. This was mostly filmed either from a monitor or by
pointing a film camera at the actors or presenters as they made
a programme.
By the 1950's a great
many programmes were still broadcast live and no recording was
made to preserve the event for posterity. An example of this
is the famous 1953 science fiction series written by Nigel Kneale,
'The Quatermass Experiment'. The first two episodes
survive as 'telerecordings' on 35mm film. A 'telerecording'
was created by pointing a film camera at a special flat screen
monitor and literally filming the programme as it was broadcast.
There is little evidence that the other four episodes of this
series were ever recorded.
Fifteen years later,
in 1968, the situation was different; a programme like Dad's
Army was mostly recorded and transmitted from 405 or 625
line black and white videotape. This would have been the case
for the first two series of Dad's Army, from the third
series the programme was broadcast in PAL Colour. The videotaped
episodes were subsequently copied, 'telerecorded', on to film
for BBC Enterprises who sold the episodes abroad in this format.
The second series of Dad's Army, which contained the
now missing episodes, was sold to Australia and New Zealand
[1]. At this time the BBC did not have a
dedicated archive for programmes, the system of preservation
was fairly haphazard. The only dedicated storage facility for
old programmes was the BBC Film Library which mostly held programmes
that originated on film and not those that originated on videotape
or were telerecorded. [2]
Destruction
The only videotaped copies
of most stories were held by BBC Engineering, who, after making
telerecordings of these programmes, kept them in a small videotape
library. These would often be the only videotape masters of
the programmes. From 1967 many tapes in this library were wiped
to make room for newer programmes. This process of wiping continued
into the 1970's. [2]
As mentioned above, the
telerecorded copies of programmes were sent to BBC Enterprises.
They sold programmes abroad until they were deemed as 'having
no further commercial value', at which point their telerecordings
were liable to be ' junked'. This simply meant that the film
reels were unspooled and thrown into a skip!
Enterprises pursued a
policy of mass junking from around about 1972. It is important
to point out that such was the lack of communication within
the BBC that both department's thought that it was the responsibility
of the other to preserve 'old' programmes. This junking continued
until 1977 and affected many programmes, not just Dad's
Army, very badly. In fact, Dad's Army has fared
much better than many other television classics of the past.
For example Doctor Who still has 109 missing episodes,
despite many being returned to the BBC Archive in the last 20
years, and this is one of the better represented programmes!
Luck?
David Croft has pointed
out some of the reasons for this 'luck' in 'Dad's
Army, The Lost Episodes', which he co-authored
with Jimmy Perry.
'One of the factors
which helped to save my programmes from destruction was that
I was on the staff and, therefore, always present when a piece
of paper came round requiring a producers agreement for a
show to be wiped. I always contrived to withhold consent.
I can only conclude that when the necessary form appeared
for these six programmes (the missing episodes) I must have
been on holiday.' [1]
Casualties!
In 1978, when, for a
number of reasons the BBC stopped the mass junkings, The Engineering
Videotape Library and the Film Library were merged to form The
BBC Film and Videotape Library. Sue Malden, the new Archive
Selector, decided to look into the situation with regards a
number of programmes. Amongst those episodes found to be missing
were 5 from the second series of Dad's Army and one
colour episode from Series 3, 'Room at the Bottom'. The latter
Episode has, however, survived as a black and white 16mm telerecording.
The
missing episodes of 'Dad's Army': |
