Wiped Episodes
Nearly all of the master videotapes from 1974 to 1978 were later erased and recycled during an ill-advised "economy drive" at the ABC. The reason was that 2-inch videotape was expensive, and at upwards of A$300 for a one-hour roll at the time, it was considered economical to re-use the tapes. 100 episodes in total were erased from this period.
In the book Glad All Over Michael Shrimpton says at that time the ABC were run by financial types and "they suddenly discovered that the increase in the purchase of video tapes had roared up 200 percent in 12 months". He said they never stopped to consider that the video tape "was the cheapest link in the chain". He said the order came through to "erase the whole wall". 500 12" reels were pulled out which affected at least 100 of the Countdown shows. Ted Emery and Paul Drane heard about it, snuck in during the middle of the night and put as many as they could in their cars and hid them.
Ted Emery said when the order came to erase the episodes he kept stalling by doing things like moving the tapes around. He said: "I kept thinking fifteen years down the track this stuff will be important." It was not to be. They tried stalling further by giving them bits and pieces like the trims and pre-assemblies but not the master copies. "But it wasn't enough," he said. "I didn't have enough to give him" so they took the masters as well.
Had it not been for Ted Emery and Paul Drane, the few episodes from the 1974-78 period that remained would have been wiped. This includes the first episode broadcast in colour.
As an aside, according to Ted Emery one of the other things deleted were the Melbourne Grand Finals. Other episodes deleted were episodes of Bellbird and Certain Women.
In recent years, ABC Archives has undertaken an upgrade of the remaining episodes, copying what was left to their two on-air playback formats Betacam SP and Digital Betacam. It is the copying of the programs onto this format that has allowed the ABC to re-broadcast episodes of Countdown during their all night music show, Rage, in January, to make up for the lack of new release video clips available to the ABC at that time.
Read more about this topic: Countdown (Australian TV series)
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