Wiping, also known as junking, is a colloquial term of art for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings (kinescopes), are erased, reused, or destroyed. Although the practice was once very common, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, wiping is now practiced much less frequently.
Robert Alan Monkhouse was an English entertainer and comedian. He was well known as a host of television game shows, including The Golden Shot, Celebrity Squares, Family Fortunes and Wipeout.
At Last the 1948 Show is a satirical television show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions, in association with Rediffusion London. Transmitted on Britain's ITV network in 1967, it brought Cambridge Footlights humour to a broader audience.
Gold is a British pay television channel from the UKTV network, that was launched on 1 November 1992 as UK Gold before it was rebranded UKTV Gold in 2004. In 2008, it was split into current flagship channel Gold and miscellaneous channel, W, with classic comedy based programming now airing on Gold, non-crime drama and entertainment programming airing on W, and quiz shows and more high-brow comedy airing on Dave. It shows repeats of classic programming from the BBC, ITV and other broadcasters. Every December, from 2015 until 2018, the channel was temporarily renamed as Christmas Gold. This has since been discontinued, although the channel still continues to broadcast Christmas comedy.
Westward Television was the first ITV franchise-holder for the South West of England. It held the franchise from 29 April 1961 until 31 December 1981. After a difficult start, Westward Television provided a popular, distinctive and highly-regarded service to its region, until public boardroom squabbles led to its franchise not being renewed by the IBA. Westward launched the career of many broadcasters who became well known nationally, won numerous awards for its programming, and heavily influenced its successor, TSW.
Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Tele-snaps were off-screen photographs of British television broadcasts, taken and sold commercially by John Cura. From 1947 until 1968, Cura ran a business selling the 250,000-plus tele-snaps he took. The photographs were snapped in half of a normal frame of 35mm film, at an exposure of 1/25th of a second. Generally around 70–80 tele-snaps were taken of each programme. They were mostly purchased by actors and directors to use as records and examples of their work before the prevalence of videocassette recorders.
Clare Julia "Keeley" Hawes is an English actress and producer. After beginning her career in a number of literary adaptations, including Our Mutual Friend (1998) and Tipping the Velvet (2002), Hawes rose to fame for her portrayal of Zoe Reynolds in the BBC series Spooks (2002–2004), followed by her co-lead performance as DI Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010), for which she won a Glamour Award for UK TV Actress.
Many portions of the popular long-running British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who are no longer held by the BBC. Between 1967 and 1978 the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes, for various practical reasons. As a result of the cull, 97 of 253 episodes from the programme's first six years are currently missing, primarily from seasons 3 to 5, leaving 26 serials incomplete. Many more were considered lost until recovered from various sources, mostly overseas broadcasters.
Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, more commonly known simply as Swap Shop, was a British children's television series that aired on BBC1 from 2 October 1976 to 27 March 1982. It was ground-breaking in many ways: by broadcasting on Saturday mornings, being live, being nearly three hours in length, and using the phone-in format extensively for the first time on TV.
Arthur's Treasured Volumes was a black-and-white British television series that aired on ITV in 1960. Starring Arthur Askey, it was written by Dave Freeman and was made for the ITV network by ATV.
The Dad's Army missing episodes are lost episodes of the British sitcom programme Dad's Army, plus some short sketches. The programme ran for nine series between 1968 and 1977. Three out of six episodes from Series 2 and two of the four Christmas sketches are missing as the BBC routinely reused videotape as a cost saving measure for many years.
Out of This World is a British science fiction anthology television series made by the ITV franchise ABC Television for ITV. It was broadcast on ITV in 1962. A spin-off from the Armchair Theatre anthology series, each episode was introduced by the actor Boris Karloff. Many of the episodes were adaptations of stories by science fiction writers including Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and Clifford D. Simak. The series is described by the British Film Institute as a precursor to the BBC science fiction anthology series Out of the Unknown, which was produced by Out of This World creator Irene Shubik after she left ABC.
This Is Your Life is a British biographical television documentary, based on the 1952 American show of the same title. It was hosted by Eamonn Andrews from 1955 until 1964, and then from 1969 until his death in 1987. Michael Aspel then took up the role of host until the show ended in 2003. It briefly returned in 2007 as a one-off special presented by Trevor McDonald.
Missing Believed Wiped is an annual event hosted by the British Film Institute that screens previously "wiped" television material from the UK that has recently been recovered.
Kaleidoscope Publishing is a publishing house founded by Richard Down and Chris Perry, and based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1988 and exists to promote the appreciation of British television, including classic and cult programming. Nowadays it is run by Chris Perry and Simon Coward.
Lost television broadcasts are composed of mostly early television programs and series that for various reasons cannot be accounted for in personal collections or studio archives.
The Brief is a British drama series produced for ITV by Television South (TVS) at its Southampton studios. The thirteen episodes were broadcast between 26 June and 18 September in 1984.
