National TV archive is urged by film institute
- Publication: The Daily Telegraph
- Date: 1989-11-21
- Author: Jane Thynne
- Page: 5
- Language: English
MANY of Britain's best loved television programmes, including Dixon of Dock Green and Dr Who, have been lost in the absence of a national television archive. The British Film Institute launched a campaign yesterday to amend the Broadcasting Bill to create an archive, to store old and new recordings, as well as search for television work that has disappeared.
It said that under the Bill, even programmes now preserved would be jeopardised. In the market-led environment, broadcasters may not take steps to keep programmes beyond their normal working life unless obliged to do so.
The institute wants the ITV companies to be forced to spend 0.05 per cent of their advertising revenue on an archive, which it would maintain.
Early television programmes were not recorded, and many films were destroyed and, later, video tapes recorded over.
No television record exists of the key parts of Mr Enoch Powell's famous "rivers of blood" speech, which were cut and thrown away because they were thought to be inflammatory.
Most of the BBC's 1969 moon landing programme was also destroyed, the institute said.
The call comes as the chances of archive material being rescreened are growing, with the advent of satellite television and the BBC's plans to show classic programmes on a subscription basis.
Only 30 out of 430 episodes of Dixon of Dock Green have survived, and the Turn of the Screw, the first full-length opera on ITV has been lost.
The programme in which Kenneth Tynan used a certain four-letter word for the first time on screen has vanished.
Only one or two examples still exist of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Quatermass Experiment, What's My Line? and Z Cars.
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- APA 6th ed.: Thynne, Jane (1989-11-21). National TV archive is urged by film institute. The Daily Telegraph p. 5.
- MLA 7th ed.: Thynne, Jane. "National TV archive is urged by film institute." The Daily Telegraph [add city] 1989-11-21, 5. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Thynne, Jane. "National TV archive is urged by film institute." The Daily Telegraph, edition, sec., 1989-11-21
- Turabian: Thynne, Jane. "National TV archive is urged by film institute." The Daily Telegraph, 1989-11-21, section, 5 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=National TV archive is urged by film institute | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/National_TV_archive_is_urged_by_film_institute | work=The Daily Telegraph | pages=5 | date=1989-11-21 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=28 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=National TV archive is urged by film institute | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/National_TV_archive_is_urged_by_film_institute | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=28 March 2025}}</ref>
