New Feature – STV Archives Come To YouTube

SINCE AUGUST of last year, websufers have been able to watch gems from the archives of Scottish Televison on video sharing site YouTube. Among the classic STV programmes made viewable on demand are popular drama Take The High Road, music show Thingummyjig and selected highlights of historic Scottish football matches.

In our latest feature, Wiped News speaks to David Paton, Media co-ordinator – STVPlayer on YouTube, about the move into cyberspace and the search for lost material. Visit: STV Archives Come To YouTube.

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New Feature: Hunting The Lost Episodes of ABC TV’s Countdown

AUSTRALIAN TV programme Countdown remains the most popular music show in the nation’s history, but the majority of early episodes from the 1970s are missing from the ABC archives.

Chart-topping acts such as AC/DC, INXS, Skyhooks and Split Enz got their big breaks on the show, which ran from 1974 – 87, while world-famous bands and artists including Wings and Elton John also made appearances.

It was repeats of surviving episodes of this legendary show that got Troy Walters involved in the hunt for missing editions.

In new Wiped News feature Turning Back Time: The Hunt For ABC’s Countdown, Troy speaks about why the show can be compared with the UK’s Top of the Pops in terms of musical and social importance, and how his search for lost material is going.

You can also read about the hunt for missing Countdowns and other Australian music shows over at Troy’s website, here.

The Troubleshooters Recovery – Interview

An interview with the collector who recently returned a missing episode of The Troubleshooters is now up on Wiped.

Oliver Ashmole chats about how he found the episode – “A Bird in the Hand” – and also about his experiences of dealing with the BBC in getting the print back to the archives.

You can find the interview here.

BSB Appeal

FOR A BRIEF but brilliant moment at the dawn of the 1990s, a new broadcaster emerged with the promise of high quality, high brow and high fidelity programming beamed down direct from the skies.

BSB offered UK viewers original content across five homegrown channels, providing an important TV platform for future household names such as Alistair MacGowan, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan and Chris Evans.

Sadly, as TV historian Ian Greaves has discovered, precious little remains of the BSB archives. Together with the assistance of classic TV research organisation Kaleidoscope, Ian is slowly piecing together the fate of BSB material, seeking to recover as much of it as possible.

WIPED recently caught up with Ian to talk about his project. You can read the feature here.

If you have any recordings of BSB material then Ian would like to hear from you. You can email him at: bsb@kaleidoscopepublishing.co.uk

New Feature Posted

FAN-MADE reconstructions of missing episodes of Doctor Who are getting ever more watchable and sophisticated.

Wiped shines the spotlight on one such recon, of the end scene of ‘Power of the Daleks’ episode five, and speaks to the talent behind it – amateur computer animator Jon Brunton.

You can find it on the Features Page or click Power Of The Daleks Power Reconstruction Spotlight.

New Feature: Popdown Progress

BACK in April wipednews.com ran a feature about psychedelic music fan Peter Prentice’s to track down a copy of lost ’60s underground film Popdown.

You can read the original article here but things have moved on quite rapidly in the intervening months and Peter has kindly written an update on Popdown and saving the entire film archive of director Fred Marshall – Popdown Progress.

New Wiped Feature: The Avengers On The Radio

FANS of superlative spy shows, stylish settings and surreal scripts might enjoy a new feature on Wiped taking a closer look at the little-known radio spin-off to The Avengers.

Alan Hayes of website The Avengers On The Radio – the only website devoted exclusively to the South African radio series – explains how he was involved in the recovery and restoration of over 100 episodes.

You can read the story here.

New Wiped Feature About Hunt For Missing Motor Racing Footage

Jersey 1947: Raymond Mays in the E.R.A.

JUST a quick note to let you all know that there’s an interesting feature now up about Gary Critcher, a motor racing fan who has located hours’ worth of footage documenting the sport’s past glories: A Driving Passion: ‘Reclaiming’ Missing Motor Sports Footage.

The image to the right is a still from a film recovered by Gary capturing the Jersey International Road Race from 1947, significant in itself as the first post-war British race.

Gary has released some of his footage on specially-made DVDs, available from his website www.yesterdaysracers.com.

Loose Cannon Recon Feature Up Now

I’ve just added a feature looking at the brilliant work of Loose Cannon Productions, which makes highly-regarded reconstructions of missing 1960s Doctor Who stories. Their latest release, “The Evil of the Daleks”, is available now and is definitely worth checking out: It’s the closest you’ll ever get to seeing the story as originally broadcast.

Click here to go to the article, with links to the LC website.

Hancock’s Half Hour Article/CD Releases Update

I have written an article about the recent discovery of soundtracks to six missing TV episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour for comedy website Chortle. You can read it by clicking here.

In addition to the forthcoming release of ‘The Flight of the Red Shadow’/’The Wrong Man’ in July – available for pre-order from the BBC Shop here – a second CD set containing the soundtracks to missing episodes ‘The Horror Serial’/’The Beauty Contest’ is scheduled to be released by BBC Audiobooks in November 2009.

Both CDs will feature restored versions of the soundtracks and especially-written sleeve notes.