bhowells

Is it me or is it possible that the big ITV companies looked after their archives better than the BBC. The reason I say this is because I have just been looking a a DVD catalogue and there are dvds of complete series of shows like George and the Dragon and Two In Clover both starring Sid James. The former show was quite popular but Two In Clover is not fondly remembered.

Whilst I have nothing against forgotten shows being preserved, more populashows have been wiped namely almost all of Morecambe and Wise first BBC Two series from 1968 and a few episodes of Not Only But Also.

Simiarly it looks as if most of the Doctor In The House series are still intact and every series of On the Buses is avialable on dvd.

Husky

Is it because, as a publicly-funded organisation, the BBC was more cost-conscious and therefore re-used videotape?

winsfordtown

If you go to missing-episode.com I think you'll find ITV did a pretty good job wiping their archives. Apparently Granada Television archiving still needs a lot of work done it.

Grey Wyler

There are gaps in the ITV archives certainly, but when it comes to wholesale vandalism the BBC wins the prize hands down.

image45

More of the things I would like to see the most are lost from the BBC archive. Its not that I don't like the ITV shows I just seem to have grown up with a love of BBC out put that they seem to have wiped

"Seya next time!"

alan gowdy

Remember also that, until recently, ITV was not the monolith that the BBC has always been, so archiving policy will have differed from company to company around the regions.

"Don't forget... one of petrol, two of meths"

dpgmel

That's a very good point Alan and one I hadn't considered before.

Dai Bando

I work with loadsa people who reckon they werent allowed to watch ITV when they were kids. What's that all about?

Mark O

Commercial Television was looked down on by many as frivolous, where as the BBC was more serious, in my first Job mid-70's I worked in an old fashioned TV and Electrical shop one upper-middle class type Lady came in one day with her grown up well-spoken but obviously cosseted and unworldy son, and she said "We wish to purchase a Television set that dosen't recieve ITV", fortunately I didn't deal with this request the store Manager did saying "you've got have ITV whether you want it or not" and I was almost in stitches listening to the pair saying "yes, but we don't want ITV"!, it was then suggested that the installation engineer simply didn't tune it (no TV self tuning then!) to ITV, but all to no avail, they didn't purchase a TV from us, and they left still convinced they would find a TV that would only accept BBC!

Mark

Simon Coward

That's certainly an argument in favour of ITV, but equally I guess you could argue that as ITV was made up of commercial organisations they'd have no point retaining something unless it had a commercial value. And profits could presumably be improved by re-using tapes rather than storing them.

Obviously archives do have a commercial value nowadays, but I would imagine it would be hard arguing a case for the preservation of some early parochial 1960s b/w series once colour had taken hold by the 1970s.

Lord Brett

A close friend of mine wasn't allowed to watch ITV by his parents - imagine having to watch Blue Peter instead of Magpie!

Rob Compton

Oops! I always preferred Blue Peter!

CaptainWaggett

Surely only vulgar common people watched ITV in the 1970s except for Upstairs Downstairs which had a special papal-style dispensation.

bobbydj

Not to mention Swap Shop instead of Tiswas.

Anyway, although I never knew anyone who wasn't allowed to watch ITV I think another reason (to add to the frivolous point, i.e.) was that kids would pester for stuff advertised between programmes. A fair point, imo. A bit like how the supermarkets always position sweets and chocolate right at the checkout so when you're waiting in the queue and the kids are bored out of their minds, and probably also hungry, they start asking for all this crap positioned right under their noses. And let's not forget how cynical and glossy some of those old toy adverts were. Evil Keneaval (sp??) zooming across the forest floor on his motorbike? Yehrite.

bobbydj