Home > Wiping (magnetic tape)

Many old BBC television programmes and plays were wiped after it was felt that they had "exhausted their commercial potential" - this was before the VCR was common and issues with the musicians union and the actors union, Equity, made repeats impossible after a set number of times - the unions reportedly feared that constant repeats could put their members out of work - remembering that there were only three channels in Britain at the time. The BBC junkings took place mainly between 1972 and 1978, now the BBC is desperately trying to get copies of the lost films illustrating the short-sightedness of the original wipings. Astonishingly, among the programmes wiped was virtually all the BBC's coverage of the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission in 1969. It was argued that one barrier to recovering these programmes is that the often the now existing copies were either illegally made or preserved. For example, in some cases a telerecording copy was made for foreign broadcast with the agreement that the copy would be destroyed or returned after broadcast, and the copy remains only because that agreement was broken. The BBC has however announced an amnesty for anyone holding such prints.

The BBC was not alone in this practice - many ITV companies also wiped videotapes and destroyed kinescopes, leaving gaps in their archive holdings.

BBC radio programmes were also wiped, some of them as late as the mid- 1980s. In the case of radio, the existence of domestic reel-to-reel audio tape recordingReel-to-reel or open reel tape recording refers to the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than being securely contained within a cassette. In use, the "feed reel" containing the tape is mounted on meant that many programmes that were taped by listeners have survived and been returned to the BBC in at least passable condition.

See also:

• Doctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television series, produced by the BBC and concerning the adventures of a mysterious time travelling adventurer known only as The Doctor . It is also the title of a 1996 television movie featuring the same character
• The Likely LadsThe Likely Lads was a British sitcom written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Three series were shown between December 1964 and July 1966. There was a successful sequel entitled Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads . The show followed the friendship of (1 found)
• Dad's ArmyDad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard in World War II, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. Popular at the time and still repeated, it was voted into fourth place in a 2004 BBC poll fo (2 found)

Full Details of the BBC's treasure Hunt: [1]

Related article: film preservationThe film preservation movement is an ongoing project among filmmakers, historians, archivists, museums, and non-profit organizations to rescue aging film stock and preserve recorded images. Literally thousands of silent films were made in the years leadin