Lost television broadcast

"Lost episode" redirects here. For other uses, see Lost episode (disambiguation).

A still from the original slow-scan television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing, which has since been lost to time.

Lost television broadcasts are television programs that were not preserved or recorded after their broadcasting, making them lost to time. They cannot be found in studio archives or any other historical record. This phenomenon primarily affects shows or movies that aired before the widespread use of home video recording and digital archiving.

Common reasons for loss

A significant portion of early television programming was never recorded, largely because the means of recording were not available or because the content itself was thought to have little monetary or historical value.

Wiping

Wiping (of a videotape) and junking (of a film) are colloquial terms for actions taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies by which old audiotapes, videotapes, and kinescopes (telerecordings) are erased and reused or destroyed. Although the practice was once typical, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, wiping is now much less common.

Australia

In the first decade of Australian TV, 1956–1966, Australia produced very little original local drama content, compared to other English-speaking nations. From the introduction of TV in Australia in 1956 to around 1964, the commercial stations did produce their own programs, but the majority of locally produced original programming was made by the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). By June 1964, the ABC had produced 185 of the 212 plays, all 31 operas, and 90 of the 95 ballets shown on Australian TV in that period.

Although many important ABC programs from these early days were captured as kinescopes, most of this material was later lost or destroyed. In a 1999 newspaper article on the subject, author Bob Ellis recounted the story of a large collection of kinescopes of early ABC drama productions, and other programs, including some of the first Australian TV Shakespeare productions, and the pioneering popular music show Six O'Clock Rock. Learning that the ABC planned to dispose of these recordings, Bruce Beresford (then a production assistant at the ABC), arranged for a friend to pose as a silver nitrate dealer, and the anonymous collector purchased the films for a nominal cost. Subsequently, the collector occasionally rented some of the films out to schools for a small fee, but the daughter of one of the actors involved (Owen Weingott) recognized her father from a Shakespeare production, and told him about it. Assuming that the ABC still owned the print and was making money out of these recordings without compensating the actors, Weingott lodged an official complaint. Commonwealth police descended on the illegal collector, but he was warned that they were coming, and in a panic he destroyed almost all the material he possessed.

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

The National Film and Sound Archive holdings of 1950s era shows include several episodes of the 1957 discussion series Leave it to the Girls, most of the 1958–1959 soap opera Autumn Affair, and a number of episodes of the comedy game show The Pressure Pak Show. These shows, produced by ATN-7 in Sydney, probably survive because they were pre-recorded for the purpose of interstate broadcast (Autumn Affair, despite primitive production values, was repeated into the 1960s).

Brazil

From 1968 to 1969, Rede Tupi produced new episodes of the telenovela Beto Rockfeller by recording over previous episodes; as a result, few episodes survive. After the closure of TV Tupi in 1980 the 536 tapes at its São Paulo studios were transported to a warehouse in the São Paulo municipality of Cotia and were simply left to deteriorate there until they were recovered by the Cinemateca Brasileira in 1985 and subsequently restored by TV Cultura in 1989. Only two Rede Tupi owned and operated stations are known to have any preserved videotapes; TV Itacolomi's archives are now owned by TV Alterosa, the Minas Gerais affiliate of SBT in Belo Horizonte, whereas almost all of TV Piratini's material was lost in a fire in 1983, two years after the building of the extinct station was occupied by TVE-RS, the statewide public television station in Rio Grande do Sul. The few TV Piratini surviving tapes are stored at the Hipólito José da Costa Communication Museum, in Porto Alegre, albeit in a heavily deteriorated state. Also, some tapes at the Rede Tupi studios in Urca, Rio de Janeiro were later found to have been significantly degraded by vinegar syndrome, hence they were unable to be migrated to a modern format. However, part of the library of Rio de Janeiro TV Tupi studios was found in 2005 at the headquarters of Radio Tupi, and later donated to the Brazilian National Archive, which signed an agreement with Globo in 2007 to preserve the material.

The Brazilian public television network Cultura has preserved many old programs and has one of the most complete archives among Brazilian television networks. Despite having suffered a fire in 1986, this fire did not reach the station's archives.

After the bankruptcy of Manchete, in 1999, most of the collection was seized at the station's studios, in Rio de Janeiro, until it was included in the bankruptcy estate and later auctioned by the Brazilian courts, which caused part of the library to be lost. However, some telenovelas (such as Pantanal) had reruns by some television networks (such as SBT and Band).

Many SBT 1980s and 1990s productions were lost due to wiping and also due to floods that occurred in 1987 and in 1991 at its studios in the district of Vila Guilherme. The network did not have an archiving policy until 1996, when the network moved its studios to CDT da Anhanguera in Osasco, Greater São Paulo.

Canada

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation never wiped programs it produced. As a result, the CBC now maintains a nearly complete archive of all programming it produced that was recorded. One exception was the 1953–54 science-fiction series Space Command, of which only one out of 150 episodes are known to survive, although the whole series was Kinescoped for distribution to stations across Canada. The CBC also says that the 1984–93 music video series, Video Hits, no longer exists in their archives; presumably, any recordings were wiped for legal reasons as the show used content licensed from music companies.

Chile

During the 1973 coup, the military burned a large portion of the publicly owned TVN's archives between 1969 and 1973.

Canal 13 (formerly Catholic University of Chile TV) also had programs whose records are lost or never existed, because only were for live broadcasting. Sábado Gigante, though began in 1962, only had recorded programs or fragments since the early 1970s. Popular live sitcom El litre 4916, broadcast between 1963 and 1965, was not recorded and no episodes survive.

Europe

The first edition ever of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 was broadcast live on radio and television but only a partial audio recording of a radio transmission has survived from the original broadcast, with an independently filmed clip of the winner's reprise as the only video available. The ninth edition in 1964 was rumored to have been recorded on tape by DR, the Danish broadcaster and this edition's host nation, but later destroyed in a fire. However, DR later stated that a recording was never made in the first place, as no tape machines were available at the time. Another recording of the contest was thought to have existed at the French television archives, but it has since been revealed that this is not the case. As no other broadcasters are known to have preserved a recording, only small portions of the original broadcast and audio from the radio transmission are accessible for the time being.

Belgium

• Most Flemish youth series from the 1950s were not preserved: Bolletje en Bonestaak (1955), Jan zonder Vrees (John the Fearless, 1956), Schatteneiland (Treasure Island, 1957), Reis om de wereld in 80 dagen (Around the World in 80 Days, 1957), and Professor Kwit (1958). The series Manko Kapak (1959) is an exception and survives on kinescope.
• Only 3 of the 12 episodes of the Flemish courtroom drama series Beschuldigde sta op from the 1960s to 1980 survive.

Czechia

In 1997, the Czech Television studio archive in Ostrava experienced a devastating flood; the flood destroyed 30,000 news film shots, 6,000 films, 2,000 video tapes, 9,000 scripts, 10,000 photographs, half of the sound archive and the costume department and the props warehouse.

Finland

In Finland, the law on the archiving of TV programs came into effect in 1984. In 1981, Finland held a televised competition to select their musical entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The only live performance from their semi-final round is of the Leevi and the Leavings, which was discovered in a private collection recorded on a VHS cassette. The original tape from Yleisradio (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) containing all fifteen acts is lost, although all acts that qualified for the final round are available online. The majority of these annual competitions held between 1961 and 1984 are now lost.

Ireland

The Republic of Ireland was a latecomer to television, with Telefís Éireann being established at the end of 1961. Although early news broadcasts were recorded on kinescopes, almost all broadcasts from the first fifteen years (i.e. up to 1977) are lost. Of the soap opera Tolka Row (1964–68) only the last episode survives, while almost all the early episodes of The Late Late Show (1962–present) are lost. Even when shows were sent abroad — The Riordans was sent to Australia for rebroadcast — the tapes were often sent back to Ireland and recorded over, as they were so expensive.

Netherlands

The 1970s Dutch TV 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.

UK

(see § United Kingdom, below)

Japan

Of the original 1973 Doraemon, 31 segments are now considered lost. The show only lasted for 26 episodes—it was interrupted due to the dissolution of Nippon TV Video, the production studio, which sold off many of the show's reels in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. 23 segments/episodes are known to have survived, two of which have no audio.

The entirety of the Nippon TV tokusatsu television series Assault! Human!!, originally produced and aired in 1972, was lost at some point after the series was rebroadcast in the 1980s after the master tapes were reused. While suits from the show were purchased, then reused by Toho in the 1973 series Go! Greenman, the only traces of Assault! Human!! come in the form of supplementary materials such as reference books, merchandise, magazine articles, and the show's soundtrack.

All episodes of Osamu Tezuka's anime Big X are reportedly lost, except for episodes 1, 11, and 40–59. Only episodes 37 and 38 of Space Alien Pipi survive, along with the opening and ending theme. Certain episodes of Perman are lost, some have picture but no audio.

Most episodes of the Children's puppet show Hyokkori Hyōtanjima, running from 1964 to 1969 on NHK for total of 1,224 episodes, were reportedly wiped after the broadcast. The tapes were reportedly reused for other programs since video tapes were costly. 6 episodes have resurfaced from black and white kinescopes, as well as 2 color episodes.

Pakistan

Additionally, viewer home recordings also exist and are the only source of video for some shows.

The Center for Media Psychology Research Pakistan website gives a different story, stating that after the switch to color broadcast, the recording medium in the 1970s was the one-inch spool format which recorded sound and electronic moving pictures as a combined stream on a magnetic recording medium. However, due to the one-inch magnetic spool containing all old archives was eventually lost.

Philippines

The television archive of ABS-CBN Corporation from 1953 to 1972 is believed lost when the station was taken over by the government of Ferdinand Marcos when he declared martial law in the country. In addition, ABS-CBN alleged in its complaint-affidavit filed after the People Power Revolution against Roberto Benedicto (who took over ABS-CBN's facilities following the declaration of martial law) that "the musical records and radio dramas accumulated by ABS-CBN in a span of twenty-five (25) years and stored in its library were now gone".

United Kingdom

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

Recording technology and rights

Drama and entertainment output was studio-based and followed the tradition of live theatre and radio drama.

The Sunday Night Play (a major event in the 1950s) was performed live in the studio. On following Thursdays, because telerecording was then of insufficient broadcast quality, another live performance was broadcast, the artists returning to perform the play again. Black Limelight is a stage play that was adapted for British television three times, with each version being lost. These include a 1952 version as part of Sunday Night Theatre, which was broadcast live and not recorded, a 1956 version as part of Armchair Theatre and a 1962 version as part of BBC Sunday-Night Play.

Although the Quadruplex videotape system was used in the UK from 1958, this system was expensive and complex; recorded programs were often erased after broadcast in an era when the UK had few channels and repeats were rare. Videotape was not initially thought to be a permanent archivable medium – its high cost and the potential reuse of the tapes led to the transfer of program material to film, via telerecording, whenever sales of overseas screening rights were possible or preservation deemed worthwhile. The recycling of videotapes, coupled with savings made on the storage of the bulky 2" tapes, enabled costs to be kept down.

BBC

The BBC, the United Kingdom's first public service broadcaster, had no policy on archiving until 1978.

Lost programs

High-profile examples of program losses include the vast majority of the BBC's Apollo 11 Moon landing studio coverage, and all 147 episodes of the soap opera United!.

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 2020.

As of 2023, 97 black and white episodes of the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who are not known to survive, all from the tenures of the first two Doctors, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton (see Doctor Who missing episodes). Audio recordings survive for all of the lost episodes and have been released commercially by the BBC. Several episodes of some serials, including The Invasion, The Reign of Terror, The Power of the Daleks and The Ice Warriors (all episodes only surviving in audio form), were reconstructed using animation for DVD releases.

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. Cook and Moore reportedly 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.

There is lost material in all genres — as late as the early 1990s, a large number of videotaped children's programs from the 1970s and 1980s were irretrievably wiped by the BBC archives on the assumption that they were of "low priority", without consulting the BBC children's department itself.

Other lost material

Episodes of the pop music chart show Top of the Pops from its first decade were wiped or, if transmitted live, not recorded. The Beatles' only live appearance on Top Of The Pops in 1966, performing the single "Paperback Writer" is believed to have been wiped in a clear-out in the 1970s. An off-air recording of 11 seconds of footage made on an 8mm film camera was discovered in April 2019.

Finding missing BBC programs

Since the establishment of an archival policy for television in 1978, BBC archivists and others over the years have used various contacts in the UK and abroad to try to track down missing programs. For example, all BBC Worldwide customers—broadcasters around the world—who had bought programs from the corporation were contacted to see if they still had copies that could be returned; Doctor Who is a prime example of how this method recovered episodes that the corporation did not retain. At the turn of the 21st century, the BBC established its Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal to recover lost productions, which has had some success.

The BBC also has close contacts with the National Film and Television Archive, which is part of the British Film Institute and its "Missing Believed Wiped" event which was first held in 1993 and is part of a campaign to locate lost items from British television's past. There is also a network of collectors who, if they find any programs missing from the BBC archives, will contact the corporation with information—or sometimes even the actual footage. Some examples of programs recovered for the archives are Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, Dad's Army, Letter from America, The Likely Lads, and Play for Today.

ITV

The original (unbroadcast) 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 transmitted shot-in-color rerecording of the episode. The original recording took place on 13 November 1970, and was in monochrome, owing to a dispute with studio technicians, the so-called Colour Strike, 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 12 February 1971. After the entire thirteen-episode season run had been recorded, it was decided to rerecord the first episode in colour to gain the highest possible audience for its first UK transmission and to help with overseas sales. The re-recording took place on 21 May 1971, and the series' UK debut was on 10 October 1971.

Recovery of missing programs

It emerged in September 2010 that more than 60 recordings of BBC and ITV drama productions originally sent for broadcast in the United States by the PBS station WNET (which serves New York City and New Jersey) had been found at the Library of Congress.

Preservation of the current archive

Live broadcasts in Britain are still not necessarily kept, and wiping of material has not ceased. According to writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, there are "big gaps in the record of children's television of the Nineties."

United States

Introduction

In the United States, the major broadcast networks engaged in the practice of wiping recordings of both daytime and late-night shows until the late 1970s. Daytime shows, such as soap operas and game shows, most of which had been taped, were erased because they were not perceived as having continuing commercial value (due to the volume of episodes, rerun syndication of such programming was rarely undertaken). In the early 1970s, the passage of Financial Interest and Syndication Rules barred the networks from syndicating their own archived programming; intended to encourage more local and independent content, it had the unintended consequence of prompting the networks to discard tapes that syndication companies had no interest in distributing (especially those in black and white).

The early years

Most of the earliest American mechanical television programs of the early 1930s, including The Television Ghost, Piano Lessons and variety shows by Helen Haynes and Harriet Lee, are considered lost, as no methods existed to preserve them. Only promotional pictures of the shows still exist.

Networks and stations

CBS

Hosting sequences (nearly always featuring celebrities) were sometimes made for telecasts of family films, such as for the first nine telecasts of MGM's The Wizard of Oz by CBS from 1956. It is not known if the sequences made for Oz survived, since they have not been seen since 1967. One hosting sequence from that era, one Eddie Albert made for the 1965 CBS telecast of The Nutcracker, starring Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, and Melissa Hayden, was included on the DVD release of the program and has survived.

DuMont

See also: List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts

During the period the DuMont Television Network (1946–1956) remained active, officials of the DuMont network wished to keep its programs as intact as possible. However, the network ceased to exist in 1956 and its archive was discarded in the 1970s. Nearly the entire film archive consisting of approximately 175 television series are missing, presumed to have been destroyed. From the ten years the network operated, only about 100 kinescope and original 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. This occurred around 1975, according to sworn testimony, to clear room at the New York City warehouse where it was previously being stored.

ESPN

The first live sporting event broadcast by ESPN was the first game of the 1979 Softball World Series in men's professional slow-pitch softball. Roughly 20 years later, the manager of the Kentucky Bourbons, losers in the series, contacted ESPN about acquiring a copy of that game and was told that this was the only lost broadcast in the network's history. However, it was later found that the owner of the series-winning Milwaukee Schlitz had previously purchased a copy of this broadcast, and still had the tapes in his possession. The tapes were produced and eventually became the centerpiece of an E:60 episode that aired as part of the network's 40th anniversary celebration in 2019.

NBC

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has a majority of its telecasts lost. Many parades were either unrecorded, discarded, or wiped entirely after their only broadcast. Only two parade telecasts from 1980 or prior exist in their entirety (1959, 1976); four others survive only via audio recordings that are up for sale online.

Program types

Children's programs

A pilot for the hit Nickelodeon preschool show The Backyardigans entitled Me and My Friends is currently the subject of a lost media search due to interest from within the Internet, due to it being lost media as well as it being live action with costumed mascot characters, instead of animated in CGI like in the produced series. However, this search led to people who were involved in the pilot allegedly being harassed and in-fighting within the lost media community.

The Paul Winchell Show, also known as The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show was a children's show hosted by ventriloquist and voice actor Paul Winchell on Metromedia Television's KTTV in Los Angeles. All of the episodes are said to have been lost after station management vindictively erased tapes in 1970 in retaliation after Winchell refused Metromedia's syndication deal and Winchell's offer to buy the tapes for $100,000.00. Winchell sued Metromedia in 1986 and was awarded $17.8 million, in total for the value of the tapes and in damages against Metromedia. Metromedia subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, but lost.

In 1995, when Hallmark Cards acquired the catalogue of the American animation studio Filmation, they converted all the studio's series from NTSC to PAL. According to Entertainment Rights, which acquired the Filmation library in 2004, Hallmark discarded Filmation's original master tapes after they were converted.

Comedy, talk shows and music

That Was the Week That Was, on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965, of 50 episodes, only a few survive in video form, yet audio episodes survive on acetate disc. The first-season black-and-white episodes were preserved on kinescope film; the surviving color episodes of the second and final season were recorded in the then-standard two-inch color quadruplex videotape format. The Paley Center has copies of some seven episodes, including the hour-long pilot. Also, scripts of all shows survive, both in the NBC Collection at the Library of Congress and in the papers of executive producer Leland Hayward at the New York Public Library. Amateur audio recordings of all or nearly all episodes also survive.

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 or destroyed and no longer exist. Carson's shows were preserved by NBC into the early 1970s but then thrown out to free storage space after the show moved to Burbank, California. When Carson later learned of their destruction, he was furious.

Game shows

As of 1997, CBS had saved 1,000,000 videotapes of news reports, broadcasts, stock footage, and outtakes according to a report that year from the National Film Preservation Board. The same report added, "Television stations still erase and recycle their video cassettes", referring to local news programs. Many local stations contract with outside companies for archiving news coverage.

The original slow-scan TV footage of the first human 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.

Soap operas

Though most soap operas made the transition from live broadcast to videotaping their shows during the 1960s, it was still common practice to wipe and reuse the tapes. This practice was due to the high cost of videotape at the time. While soap operas began routinely saving their episodes between 1976 and 1979, several soaps have saved recordings of most or all their episodes. Days of Our Lives has recordings of all its episodes; its first two episodes exist on their original master tapes, and were aired by SOAPnet in 2005. The Young and the Restless, Dark Shadows, and Ryan's Hope saved most of their episodes, despite the fact that they debuted during the 1960s and 1970s before retaining tapes became common practice. Episodes of The Doctors began to be saved no later than December 4, 1967; this is where reruns of the series began when picked up by Retro Television Network in September 2014, and distributor SFM Entertainment claims to have roughly 95% of the series' episodes intact in its library. However, the episodes from the final two years of The Doctors are now believed to be lost.

Sporting events

See also: List of World Series broadcasters, List of Super Bowl broadcasters, NFL on CBS, NFL on NBC, and List of NBA Finals broadcasters

National Football League (NFL)

Super Bowl I was aired by both CBS and NBC (the only Super Bowl to be aired by two networks), but neither network then felt the need to preserve the game long-term; CBS saved the telecast for a few months and re-ran it as filler programming at least once before wiping it. A color videotape containing the first, second and fourth quarters of the telecast from WYOU (the CBS affiliate for Scranton, Pennsylvania, which was then WDAU-TV) was found in 2005 and is in the process of being restored. On January 15, 2016, the NFL Network re-aired the first Super Bowl, featuring audio from NBC Radio and most of the TV network broadcast and newly discovered NFL Films footage of the game. Super Bowl II was aired exclusively by CBS and was long believed to have been erased, but it was later found that the entire telecast fully exists and rests in the vaults of NFL Films. Though NBC's telecast of Super Bowl III exists entirely in color, only half of the CBS broadcast Super Bowl IV broadcast does (the rest was preserved via Canadian simulcasts in black-and-white). The first three quarters of Super Bowl V broadcast by NBC Los Angeles' O&O station KNBC exist, but the fourth quarter is missing, though the Mike Curtis interception and Jim O'Brien game-winning field goal were recovered via news highlights from CBC in Canada. Super Bowl VI also exists in its entirety. It was not until Super Bowl VII that a continuous archive was established, with all Super Bowl telecasts from that point onward existing in their entireties.

World Series telecasts

All telecasts of all World Series games starting in 1975 (Reds–Red Sox) are known to exist in full. What follows is the known footage of World Series telecasts prior to 1975:

• 1952 (Yankees–Dodgers) – Games 6–7 are intact.
• 1955 (Yankees–Dodgers) – Only the first half of Game 5 is known to exist.
• 1956 (Yankees–Dodgers) – Only the last three innings of Game 2 are known to exist. Game 3 is intact minus the second and third inning. Game 5 (Don Larsen's perfect game) is intact minus the first inning, and was aired on January 1, 2009, during the MLB Network's first broadcast day.
• 1957 (Yankees–Braves) – Game 1 is intact by way of a print from the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Game 3 is intact, minus a snip of Tony Kubek's second home run in the top 7th inning. Games 6 (most of the first six innings) and 7 reportedly exist as well.
• 1960 (Yankees–Pirates) – Game 7 (with Bill Mazeroski's series winning home run) was found intact on kinescope in December 2009 in the wine cellar of Pirates' part-owner Bing Crosby, who had the game recorded at his own expense. MLB Network aired it in December 2010.

Select list of TV programs with missing episodes

name	date	description
[[Audrey and Friends]]	2002	A British children's show that aired on Channel 5's Milkshake! and Shake! blocks, which only the pilot and the partially found episode "Away" were found.
Family Affairs	1949–1950	None of the six episodes of this, the first television serial remain, as they were not archived by the BBC.
Joy Junction	1979	Almost all episodes of the Christian children's series are lost due to the show airing no reruns and being pulled from broadcasting. Meanwhile, it has been discovered that the ventriloquist Ronald Brown, one of the cast members of Joy Junction, had desires to kidnap, rape and cannibalize young children, and also possessed child pornography, children's underwear and photos of deceased children. This discovery led Brown to get the attention of the police in 1998 and later get arrested in 2012 to later be sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Match Game	1962–1969	Approximately 11 NBC network episodes survive out of the 1,752 episodes produced.

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.

In 2006, a life-sized Dalek was given to anyone who found and returned one of the missing episodes of Doctor Who. In December 2012, the Radio Times announced it was launching a hunt for more Doctor Who episodes in aid of the show's 50th anniversary, by publishing their own list of missing episodes and setting up a specific address which the public could email if they had any information. In 2013 it was announced that ten 1960s episodes were discovered in a Nigerian television broadcasting station, although only nine were later released. Philip Morris, who discovered all ten episodes, speculated that the tenth episode was stolen and sold for a profit before it could be returned to the UK.

See also

• Lost film
• Lost literary work
• Lost media
• List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
• Doctor Who missing episodes
• British television Apollo 11 coverage
• Missing Believed Wiped
• Kinescope
• Film preservation

Further reading

• Fiddy, Dick (2002). Missing, Believed Wiped: Searching for the Lost Treasures of British Television. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-866-9.
• Hansen, Kathleen A.; Paul, Nora (2017). Future-proofing the news : preserving the first draft of history. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-6712-1. OCLC 961007777.