Lost television broadcast

For individual lost episodes of a television series, see lost episode.

The list of lost television broadcasts is composed of mostly early television programs and series that for various reasons cannot be accounted for in personal collections or studio archives.

Reasons for loss

A significant amount of early television programming is not lost but rather was never recorded in the first place. Early broadcasting in all genres was live, sometimes performed repeatedly, because there was no means to record the broadcast or because content itself was reasoned to have little monetary or historical value. In the United Kingdom, much early programming was lost due to contractual demands by the actors' union to limit the rescreening of recorded performances.

Apart from Phonovision experiments by John Logie Baird, and some 280 rolls of 35mm film containing a number of Paul Nipkow television station broadcastings, no recording of transmissions from 1939 or earlier are known to exist.

In 1947, Kinescope films became a viable method of recording broadcasts, but programs were only sporadically filmed or preserved. Tele-snaps of British television broadcasts also began in 1947 but are necessarily incomplete. Magnetic videotape technologies became a viable method to record and distribute material in 1956. Televised programming (especially that which was not considered viable for reruns) was still considered disposable, however, and what was recorded was routinely destroyed by wiping and reusing the tapes, until the rise of the home video industry in the late 1970s.

The ability for home viewers to record programming was extremely limited; although a home viewer could record the video of a broadcast by kinescope recording onto 8 mm film throughout television history or record the audio of a broadcast onto audiotape beginning in the 1950s, one could generally not capture both on the same medium until super-8 debuted in the 1960s. (Attempting to film a television broadcast using the kinescope process, because it required positioning the camera squarely in the line of viewing of the screen and thus blocked the view of other people trying to watch, also was quite disruptive to the television viewing experience and is thus exceptionally rare among home movies. Audio recordings, which do not require obstructing the view of other viewers, are more common, and numerous copies of otherwise lost television broadcasts exist.) The mass availability of home video recording in the late 1970s and early 1980s was also a benefit for television producers and archivers; because video was now economical enough for even a home viewer to afford, networks could now afford to save all of their programming as well.

Significant lost broadcasts

Australia

• This practice of reusing videotape continued well into the 1970s: Many episodes of the pioneering Australian prime time soap opera Number 96 are lost.

Other episodes missing from archives are many early episodes of Countdown, Bellbird and Young Talent Time. Episodes of Hey Hey it's Saturday have many episodes missing. Some were retrieved from people home taping these things. Portions of Young Talent Time have also survived this way.

Many other music shows have also been wiped aside from Countdown. Recovery of these things are often more by chance or home video.

No footage is known to exist of the Melbourne version of Tell the Truth

General lack of repeats of 1950s and 1960s Australian series makes it difficult to know what is extant and what is lost. For example, there is no information available as whether any episodes still exist of Take That (1957-1959), sometimes considered to the first Australian television sitcom. Information on archival status is also lacking for other 1950s-era series like The Isador Goodman Show (1956-1957), It Pays to Be Funny (1957-1958), Sweet and Low (1959), among others.

Europe

• The first edition ever of the Eurovision Song Contest of 1956 was broadcast live and never recorded, and only a sound recording of the radio transmission has survived from the original broadcast. The ninth edition of 1964 was indeed recorded on tape, but fire destroyed the copy, and it's unknown if any other TV station in Europe has another copy. Only small portions of the original broadcast and audio from the radio transmission have survived.
• The 23rd, 24th and 25th edition of Italian Sanremo Festival of 1973, 1974 and 1975 have been lost in Italian Public Broadcasting archives and never recovered. Only some portions of the original tapes have survived in the Daily News Archives. The whole 17th edition of 1967 is missing as well supposedly handed to the public authorities because of the investigation of Luigi Tenco's suicide. The 26th edition of 1976 was missed by the Italians but it could be recovered in the Spanish Broadcasting Company's vaults, since it was broadcast all around Europe and recorded by the Spaniards.
• In Spain, hundreds of episodes from the internationally versioned show Un, dos, tres... responda otra vez, mainly from the first two seasons (1972–1973 and 1976–1978), including the first episode of the first season, are lost or were destroyed. Only 4 episodes out of 54 from the first season and 12 out of 83 from the second season are known to survive. The following seasons from the third to the fifth one (1982–1986) are also incomplete, but not as dramatically diminished as the previous seasons. The sixth season of 1987 is first fully located and preserved one. Since Spanish Television archives were not cataloged until 1987, and there are thousands of tapes in kilometers of shelves of unknown uncataloged content, there could be more episodes there than what is preserved today (the last previously thought lost then found episode from the first season was just discovered in 2005). Also, some of the lost episodes of seasons three, four and five exist either complete or portions on home video recordings by the viewers.
• 1970s-era Dutch series The Eddy-Go-Round Show hosted by Eddy Becker, despite featuring high-profile guests, is reported to have been largely erased by the broadcaster it aired on, though a short section featuring Swedish pop group ABBA performing I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do was later uncovered on a tape recorded by a home viewer. An additional episode was later uncovered as the host had kept a copy himself, and was later re-broadcast on a Dutch cable channel in 2012

United Kingdom

Main article: List of lost television broadcasts in the United Kingdom

• Lost forever are early BBC-created programmes from the 1930s and 1940s like Telecrimes, Pinwright's Progress, The Disorderly Room, Sports Review, Theatre Parade, and the play Wasp's Nest. The only visual evidence of these programmes today consists of still photographs.
• All recordings of the early televised Francis Durbridge serials from 1952 to 1959 were completely destroyed, and the first two (Broken Horseshoe and Operation Diplomat) were never recorded.
• Only one episode survived from the 1961 TV Series Call Oxbridge 2000.
• Four of the six episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, Britain's first science fiction television programme aimed at an adult audience, were never recorded; the two existing episodes are the oldest BBC recordings of any fictional series today.
• The Madhouse on Castle Street, a 1963 BBC teleplay starring a then-unknown Bob Dylan, is considered lost. It was erased in 1968, and despite attempts by the British Film Institute to recover it, a telerecorded copy has still not been found as of 2009.
• In autumn 1967, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons had made such impact on viewers of the show that the producers of ATV's Saturday evening live game show The Golden Shot decided for their Christmas special to dedicate the show to Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. The show was presented by Bob Monkhouse. The Golden Shot consisted of a number of shooting games where viewers using their telephone directed a blindfolded marksman to fire his crossbow at illuminated apples attached to illustrated backgrounds. For the Captain Scarlet edition, the target board featured individual painted scenes from the TV series The Mysterons Complex, Angel Interceptors, Spectrum Helicopter and the Angel Interceptors, Spectrum Helicopter and the Angels exiting the Amber Room on their injector seats. Captain Scarlet was the star guest (designated Golden Partner) the puppet of Captain Scarlet say at Colonel White's desk whilst Francis Matthews supplied the voice off- camera. A musical performance was supplied by "The Spectrum" who sang their latest hit song "Headin for a Heatwave", the hosts Anne Aston and Carol Dilworth wore Angel Uniforms. The show was originally broadcast live On Saturday 23 December 1967, ATV London region at 8:35pm. It was then shown the next day at 1:05pm on ATV Midlands region. Since these airings all the archive footage of this show has been wiped.
• Many early music programmes, such as Ready Steady Go and (until the mid-1970s, most episodes of) Top of the Pops are lost, so many significant television appearances—such as The Beatles' last live television performance in 1966, and most appearances of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett—are unavailable.
• 97 black and white episodes of the BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who, particularly from the tenures of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton (the first two Doctors), do not exist in the BBC's archives (see Doctor Who missing episodes), though they have an ongoing appeal for help from viewers who may have recorded the shows during their original airings. Audio recordings exist for all of the lost episodes, however, all of which have been released commercially by the BBC; two episodes of the serial The Invasion (which survive only in audio form) were reconstructed using animation for the serial's DVD release in 2006. The BBC also holds many extant clips from the lost episodes ranging from such sources as an 8 mm camera, censored clips physically cut from the episodes, insert shots, and clips shown on 1960s and 1970s programmes (most notably Blue Peter). As recently as late 2013 (when the five previously missing episodes of The Enemy of the world and four of the five missing episodes of The Web of Fear were discovered) occasional lost episodes have continued to be discovered.
• The BBC wiped many editions of Not Only... But Also, starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore from its archives in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as it did with many other programmes. Cook and Moore had even allegedly offered to pay for the cost of preservation and buy new videotapes so that the old tapes would not need to be reused, but this offer was rejected. Some telerecordings of the black and white episodes survive, but all of the videotaped footage from the colour series was wiped, so that the only surviving colour sketches are on 16mm film inserts.
• Many other BBC shows are missing from the archives, including the BBC studio footage from the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landings. Many series, such as football-themed soap opera United!, are missing in their entirety, while others only survive in fragments such as A for Andromeda, a science fiction series that was Julie Christie's first major role. Also missing are episodes of Dad's Army, Hancock's Half Hour, Doomwatch, Out of the Unknown, Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, and many others. In an interview in the 2009 documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth, Terry Gilliam claims to have purchased all of the Monty Python's Flying Circus tapes from the BBC when he was informed that they were about to be wiped.
• Most of the archives of two ITV contractors Associated British Corporation (ABC) and Associated-Rediffusion were destroyed in the 1970s after they were merged to become Thames Television. Associated-Rediffusion's archive suffered considerably more damage than Associated British Corporation's, leaving little of No Hiding Place, The Rat Catchers, and other programmes. Almost all of the entire first series of The Avengers was erased shortly after transmission.
• The original black-and-white recording of the premiere episode of the British series Upstairs, Downstairs (1970–1975) does not exist in any form with the possible exception of a few stills and the location footage which features at the start of the shot-in-color rerecording of the premiere episode. The original recording took place on November 13, 1970, and was in monochrome owing to a dispute with studio technicians, who refused to work with colour recording equipment as part of a work to rule. The following five episodes were also recorded in monochrome before the dispute ended with the recording of episode 6 in color on February 12, 1971. After the entire thirteen-episode season run had been recorded, it was decided to rerecord the first episode in color to gain the highest possible audience for its first UK transmission and to help with overseas sales. The rerecording took place on May 21, 1971, and the series' UK debut was on October 10, 1971. The original monochrome recording was never transmitted and was wiped. All of the other five black-and-white episodes from series one survive.
• Most editions of the controversial and anarchic British children's Saturday morning television series Tiswas were transmitted live without any official recording and many of the original master tapes of such editions as did get recorded by the broadcaster were wiped or left to deteriorate after the series was canceled in 1982. When a series of Tiswas highlight compilation tapes was released on video in the early 1990s (followed in 2006 by a DVD), much of the footage appeared to have been culled from the off-air recordings of private archivists.

United States

• The debut broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show (then called Toast of the Town), from June 20, 1948, is considered lost. The episode featured the first television appearance of the comedy act of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
• Nearly the entire film archive of the DuMont Television Network (1946–1956), consisting of approximately 175 television series, are missing, presumed destroyed. From the ten years of this network, only about 100 kinescope and film episodes of DuMont series survive at the Library of Congress, UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Paley Center for Media in New York, Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, on YouTube or Internet Archive, or in private collections. In 1996, early television actress Edie Adams testified at a hearing in front of a panel of the Library of Congress on the preservation of American television and video, that little value was given to the DuMont film archive by the 1970s, and that all the remaining kinescoped episodes of DuMont series were loaded into three trucks and dumped into Upper New York Bay. See List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts for more info.
• The Louisiana Hayride television program, broadcast in Shreveport, Louisiana and other local areas, which featured the first television appearance of Elvis Presley. Only an audio recording taken of Presley singing, "I Forgot to Remember" on the program has survived. Original broadcast date was March 5th 1955.
• None of the episodes of the 1954–55 The Vampira Show, the first television horror movie show, were ever preserved.
• The 1957 syndicated cartoon Colonel Bleep has approximately half of its episodes still missing. The entire master archive was stolen in the early 1970s, never to be found, and the current collection is taken from the various tapes sent out to individual stations, approximately half of which have been found.
• The 1957 CBS production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella starring Julie Andrews was believed to be lost for years. It was rediscovered in the late 1990s, but only in black-and-white kinescope; the original color broadcast has been lost.
• Almost all of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jack Paar and the first ten years (1962–1972) hosted by Johnny Carson were taped over by the network and no longer exist. The videotape was being used repeatedly, hence the reason that Carson's Tonight Show picture looked muddy during broadcast in the late 1960s. Selected sequences from the 1962–1972 era survive and were often replayed by Carson himself (particularly in the months preceding his retirement in 1992) and have been released to home video. Some Paar episodes also survive and have been released to DVD.
• Similarly, NBC reused the tapes of ventriloquist Shari Lewis' 1960-1963 Saturday morning children's The Shari Lewis Show, to record coverage of the 1964 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Lewis said in an interview decades later that this was a shame, since the shows were beautifully done as a showcase of NBC's early color broadcast work.
• As of 2011, 1968's Super Bowl II is the only Super Bowl without any surviving telecast recording. A nearly complete color tape of Super Bowl I was discovered in 2005, but kept secret for nearly five years; portions of telecasts up through Super Bowl V are either missing or only exist in black-and-white. NFL Films, the league's official filmmaker, produced their own copies (at a higher quality than a live television broadcast could produce at the time) of the games for posterity.
• With home VCRs being uncommon until the mid-1980s, it is unlikely that lost television episodes exist in the collections of individuals, though this occasionally happens. Home audio recordings, however, were relatively common at the time, and audio recordings of these episodes are somewhat more common. One well-known example of an early home video recording being the only surviving footage of an event is a clip of John Lennon visiting the announcers' booth during a 1974 Monday Night Football broadcast. ABC lost the footage of this event, but a private collector's copy appears in the Beatles Anthology.
• Another such example occurred with the Sergio Leone film A Fistful of Dollars. When it was originally broadcast in the United States in 1975, an alternate opening was shot to meet the standards and practices guidelines of the network. This opening was subsequently lost by the network, but had been taped by a fan of the film and was placed on the special edition DVD.
• Most US daytime soap opera episodes broadcast before 1978 have been lost. The status of episodes, however, varies widely from show to show:
  • Soaps produced by Procter & Gamble Productions, including Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, The Edge of Night, and Another World began preserving their episodes in 1978. A few scattered episodes, mostly black and white kinescopes, of these series exist from the 1950s, 1960s, and early to mid-1970s. The CBS soaps Love of Life and The Secret Storm, as well as several short-lived shows, suffered the same fate.
  • ABC's One Life to Live and All My Children were originally owned by their creator, Agnes Nixon, who chose to archive all episodes. However, early episodes of AMC were saved as black-and-white kinescopes despite being produced and telecast in color. ABC purchased the shows in late 1974; different sources report that Nixon's archive was either lost in a fire or erased. A few black-and-white kinescopes of both series' early years exist, as well as a few color episodes. ABC began full archiving of these soaps at Nixon's insistence when they expanded from 30 minutes to an hour—AMC in 1977, and OLTL in 1978.
  • Most 1963–1970 episodes of ABC's General Hospital survive because the series was then owned by Selmur Productions. Few episodes from 1970–1977 were saved. Dark Shadows, which ran from 1966–1971 and was produced by Dan Curtis Productions, exists in its entirety except for one episode, for which an audio recording exists. Ryan's Hope premiered in 1975, several years before ABC began saving all of its daytime programming, but exists in its entirety as it was originally owned by Labine-Mayer Productions.
  • Dark Shadows created by Dan Curtis, which ran from 1966 to 1971, has the distinction of being one of the few soap operas to have nearly all of its original episodes preserved. As a result of kinescope, many earlier episodes of which the master film was lost are still available. However, episode #1219 was lost but reconstructed with an audio recording for home video release.
  • Two long-running soaps have full archives: Days of our Lives, which premiered in 1965, and The Young and the Restless, which premiered in 1973. Both series were originally distributed by Screen Gems.
• The original slow-scan TV footage of the first manned moon landing in 1969, believed to be of significantly higher quality than the standards-converted version broadcast on TV, is missing from NASA's archives. This, among other things, has led to many conspiracy theories about the landings, though both NASA and non-NASA authorities have repeatedly debunked any claims of foul play. See Apollo 11 missing tapes.
• Almost all daytime game shows from the 1970s and prior have been destroyed. CBS's archives begin in 1972, ABC's in 1978, and NBC's in 1980. A handful of producers (most notably Goodson-Todman) did arrange for the preservation of their shows even during the tape-recycling period.
  • The original Jeopardy! (NBC, 1964–1975) is said to be lost, although 24 episodes are known to exist.
  • Approx. 130 episodes of The Hollywood Squares (NBC, 1966–1981) were broadcast on Game Show Network, mostly the 1968 NBC nighttime version and 1971–1976 syndicated episodes; NBC allegedly destroyed the remainder when it was announced that GSN acquired the rights to the Squares episodes.
  • Snap Judgment (NBC, 1967–1969) is completely destroyed, with only one episode existing on audio tape.
  • The Big Showdown (ABC, 1974–1975) has only two episodes surviving, along with a bonus round clip.
  • Second Chance (ABC, 1977) has no episodes remaining except for Pilot #3 and a general series episode on video, and the finale on audio tape.
  • High Rollers (NBC and syndication, 1974–1976 and 1978–1980) has only twelve episodes remaining: two from the first run and ten from the second, including the finale.
  • Winning Streak (NBC, 1974–1975) has only two episodes remaining, plus the opening portion of a third.
  • Eye Guess (NBC, 1966–1969) has only one and a half episodes remaining.
  • The nighttime version of The Price Is Right (syndication, 1972–1980) has not been destroyed, but remains locked and mostly unseen in CBS's archives since their original airings due to a dispute with former executive producer and host Bob Barker. This includes the entire hosting span of Dennis James, who hosted from 1972–1977. Five episodes are known to have survived outside the archives, and about 30 others from 1973–1975 circulate on home audiotape.
  • The first daytime version of Wheel of Fortune (NBC, 1975–1989) is destroyed through at least 1979, with a King World representative stating in August 2006 that creator Merv Griffin's production company continued reusing tapes into 1985. GSN holds all episodes after the cutoff point, airing three (from 1976, 1982, and 1989) following Griffin's death in 2007. Despite not being among the three, clips of a March 1978 episode were used for a c.-2004 Total Living interview with original host Chuck Woolery, using a then-current (for the interview) GSN logo. Fans have since hypothesized that GSN made or received copies from the Paley Center for Media, which holds all four episodes in question.
• The joint Japanese and English masters for Tetsuwan Atom/Astro Boy were destroyed in 1975 by NBC after the syndication of the series ended and Tezuka Productions, which was undergoing bankruptcy at the time refused them for lack of funds to receive them. When The Right Stuf gained the license for the series, they were forced to find broadcast copies of the show and mate them with English sound masters that were still extant.
• The Audio track of Batman: The Animated Series pilot is missing.
• A number of episodes of the early-1960s sitcom My Living Doll are either lost or only survive in poor condition. The 2011 DVD release of the first half of the season includes an on-screen plea to anyone who might have prints of the missing episodes.

Select list of TV programs with missing episodes

name	date	description
The Adventures of Twizzle	1957	Every episode of the series recorded except for the first episode "Twizzle & Footso" are believed to have been lost forever.
Baffle	1973-1974	American word-guessing game show. Only 3 out of 100 episodes still exist.
Barley Charlie	1964	Only 3 of the 13 episodes produced of Australia's second-ever sitcom survive.
The Bear Bryant Show	1958–1982	One of the first college football coaches' shows; over 250 episodes were made during Bear Bryant's tenure at the University of Alabama. Early episodes were aired live and not recorded; videotape began to be used in the 1970s, but was routinely wiped. Less than a third of the run, 77 episodes in all, survives.
Beulah	1950–1953	Only 7 episodes have survived.
Camel News Caravan	1948–1956	An early news program, most episodes are believed to be lost.
Captain Video and His Video Rangers	1949–1955	Almost entire run destroyed after the DuMont Television Network ceased to exist. 27 episodes remain.
Cavalcade of Stars	1952-1957	Popular variety series; dozens of episodes were destroyed in the 1970s.
Coke Time with Eddie Fisher	1953-1957	Many episodes have been lost, although some (Such as one starring Florence Henderson) have survived
Countdown	1974-1987	Numerous episodes erased by ABC.
Crossroads	1964–1988	More than 80 percent of Associated TeleVision's run was wiped or otherwise lost, although Central Television's run is intact.
Dark Shadows	1966-1971	Only one episode, #1219, is missing, although a reconstruction using a home audio recording and narration has been created for home video.
Doctor Who	1963-present	106 episodes of this series are missing. See Doctor Who missing episodes.
Dollar a Second	1953–1957	Only two episodes have survived. A third kinescoped program exists in the J. Fred & Leslie W. MacDonald Collection of the Library of Congress.
Doorway to Fame	1947–1949	One of the first "talent shows" aired on United States television, Only two episodes survive.
DuMont Evening News	1954–1955	No episodes are known to survive.
Family Affairs	1949–1950	Nothing remains of the first family-centred sitcom as none of the six episodes were ever recorded by the BBC.
Faraway Hill	1946	No footage, stills, or scripts survive from this program, which was the first soap opera aired on American television.
Gambit	1972–1976	More than 1,000 episodes appear to be lost.
The Goldbergs	1949–1956	Only the last two seasons survive intact, with the CBS and NBC runs being largely lost.
The Grove Family	1954–1957	Very little of the UK's first soap opera remains today in the BBC archives.
Hinterland Who's Who	1963–present	One episode of this Canadian short-form series remains missing.
Hour Glass	1946–1947	No footage remains of television's first variety show.
In Melbourne Tonight	1957–1970	Hundreds of episodes no longer exist.
It's Alec Templeton Time	1955	One of the last DuMont series. Though Alec Templeton was a celebrity of some note, no episodes exist of the televised version of his program.
Jul og Grønne Skove	1980	One of the later examples of lost TV shows, this was a Christmas calendar originally broadcast on Danish television by DR. Half of the 24 episodes were wiped some time in the mid-80's, as were many of DR's productions made prior to 1987, where DR made an agreement with "Statens Mediesamling" to archive all future productions
Mama	1949–1957	The vast majority of the episodes produced of this series no longer exist.
Mary Kay and Johnny	1947–1950	Almost completely destroyed. The show was originally broadcast live and not recorded, but began using kinescopes in 1948. Many episodes from the latter period still existed as late as 1975, but only one complete 1949 episode (in the Paley Media Collection; see their web catalogue) and a few seconds from the show's last few episodes still exist today.
Mindreaders	1979–1980	Only around two episodes are known to survive, even though wiping had been largely phased-out by the "Big 3" United States networks at the time.
Newsweek Views the News	1948–1950	A prime-time public-affairs program featuring editors of Newsweek magazine discussing current events; only two episodes survive.
Number 96 (TV series)	1972-1977	Most of the black and white episodes were taped over by the Ten Network.
Opera Cameos	1953–1955	One of several "cultural" programs aired by the DuMont Television Network as counter-programming, only eight episodes survive of the 50+ episodes produced.
The Pinky Lee Show	1954–1955	Few episodes of this critically acclaimed TV series have survived.
Pinwright's Progress	1946–1947	Aired live and never recorded, only still photographs remain of the world's first situation comedy.
Puttnam's Prairie Emporium	1988–1990	The master tapes were reportedly wiped by CKCK-TV in the early 1990s. A single episode (an outtakes and bloopers special), and a few minutes from one other are known to survive.
Queen for a Day	1956–1964	Almost every episode of this popular TV series was destroyed.
Rocky King, Inside Detective	1950–1955	Original negatives were dumped into Upper New York Bay in the 1970s.
The School House	1949	Only one episode has survived from early 1949 of this DuMont show, featuring Wally Cox (flubbing his lines in a live DuMont TV set commercial) and Arnold Stang with musical performances set in a high school classroom.
Sara and Hoppity	1962–1963	The master tapes are believed to have all been lost or destroyed. The pilot version of the first episode "Sara & Hoppity" was discovered in a 16mm print along with the 16mm film reels of all 39 episodes of Space Patrol in possession of Roberta Leigh in the late 1990s. One other episode is known to have been found, while only 1 minute of silent footage from another was found.
Search for Tomorrow	1951–1982	Because CBS wiped it, thousands of episodes no longer exist. However the J. Fred & Leslie W. MacDonald Collection of the Library of Congress has 3 kinescopes from 1953, 1 from 1954, and 39 from May–August 1966.
Sense and Nonsense	1954	Only one episode survives of this WABD series.
Sixpenny Corner	1955–1956	The only soap opera ever made by Associated-Rediffusion, and the first British serial to be broadcast on a non-BBC channel is believed to have been completely destroyed.
Snap Judgment	1967–1969	A game show believed to be completely wiped from the NBC archives.
Starlight	1936–1949	The first ever variety show transmitted anywhere in the world, and the BBC's first ever programme. The BBC did not have access to means of recording until late 1949, so no footage is known to exist of this show today.
The Match Game	1962–1969	Only around 11 episodes survive out of the 1,752 episodes produced.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson	1962-1972	Almost all 1962–1972 episodes were erased by NBC.
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends	1984–present	The Season 2 premiere, "The Missing Coach", was filmed, but then replaced with "Thomas, Percy & The Coal". Britt Allcroft said that the plot would be too hard for kids to comprehend. Several production stills, though, still exist in several books.
Young Talent Time	1971-1988	Almost all early episodes were erased by the Ten Network.
Z-Cars	1962–1978	Half of the episodes of this popular police television series are still missing, although many episodes once believed to be lost were recovered on 16mm film.
Various CNN broadcasts	1980–present	Although CNN does keep extensive footage and news coverage, copies of programming with original presenter links (i.e. the newsreader) are rarely kept see section 3 part B

Recovery efforts

The public appeal campaign the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt for the search for lost BBC productions has ended. The BBC still does accept materials and they can be contacted through the "Donating to the BBC Collection" page of the history on the BBC website.

On 20 April 2006 it was announced on Blue Peter that a life-sized Dalek would be given to anyone who found and returned one of the missing episodes.

In December 2012 the Radio Times announced it was launching the hunt for more Doctor Who episodes in aid of the show's 50th anniversary. The Radio Times issued their own list of missing episodes. The Radio Times have also set up an address specifically for Doctor Who lost episodes which the public can email if they have any information.

See also

• Lost film
• Wiping
• List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts

External links

• The Museum of Television and Radio: "Lost" programs
• Television Obscurities – TV's Lost & Found: Television — Lost or Missing