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read this at another site and thought it might be of interest here for some members.

<Some time in the early 1990s, a huge amount of videotaped children's programmes were bulk-erased by the BBC archives. Amongst these were episodes of Animal Magic, Take Hart, Vision On, Play School, Play Away, Jackanory Playhouse, The Adventure Game, the first three series of Rentaghost, the only known copies of the English language versions of several Tales From Europe, and a large amount of Watch With Mother. The master tapes of around half of the episodes of each of Ring-a-Ding, Ragtime, Playboard, How Do You Do!, Over the Moon and the extended versions of Bod were erased and most likely lost forever.>

<All the 'Rentaghost' episodes exist because there was a broadcaster that had copies of those wiped and had kept them for future transmission. Apparently, someone at the BBC realized that the wiped episodes, along with the existing episodes, were needed for a new contract and had found out this grim state of affairs (which should never have happened in the first place). Thankfully, they found copies of all the wiped episodes with the broadcaster and were able to recover the situation.>

<Rentaghost was amazingly one of the things that managed to be saved (as there were still sales copies being transmitted while the masters were being junked!) The rest were not so lucky. Adam Lee was responsible for the junkings (yes, the same Adam Lee talking about the value and diversity of the archives in a BBC online clip not long ago!) and it was a very short-sighted decision. All we can do is hope it never happens again but, personally, I don't believe they have ever really learned anything from past mistakes of this kind>


Its very shocking to know that at a time when the BBC were aiming to obtain overseas copies of lost programmes to fill gaps in their own Archive people like Adam Lee were still allowing shows to be lost once again!

"Seya next time!"