Dad's Army Missing Episodes - Background

Background

Before 1978, reusable videotapes and film recordings stored in the BBC's various libraries were regularly wiped or destroyed to enable newer programmes to be stored without increasing costs. Restrictions on repeats negotiated by unions are usually also given as a reason.

For the first two series, Dad's Army was made in black-and-white, with most episodes being made on two-inch quad videotape for initial broadcast. As a series thought to have commercial potential overseas, the first series was offered for sale to foreign broadcasters by BBC Enterprises. To this end, 16mm film copies were made of the first six episodes by the BBC Engineering department before the master videotapes were wiped. In the event, the first series sold very poorly and BBC Enterprises did not express interest in selling series two abroad, resulting in few film copies of series two episodes being made. One episode from the series, "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret", was recorded onto 35mm film instead of videotape, either because it required additional editing (which was easier to perform with film before the advent of electronic timecode editing) or because no videotape recording facilities were available in the recording period. This inadvertently assured the episode's survival: being effectively a production made on film it fell within the BBC Film Library's remit of retaining filmed productions.

From the third series onwards the show was made in colour. With overseas interest in the series picking up, BBC Enterprises resumed offering the episodes for sale in up to three different formats:

• PAL 625 line colour videotapes for countries with the same broadcast standards as the United Kingdom, including (from 1975) Australia
• NTSC 525 line colour videotapes for countries such as Canada and the United States
• 16mm film records for countries still broadcasting in black-and-white (such as Australia until 1975).

Until 1978 the BBC had no central archive, with the Film Library keeping only some programmes that were made on film (e.g. "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret"), whilst the Engineering Department handled videotape but had no mandate to retain material. BBC Enterprises only kept material that was considered commercially exploitable and had limited storage space.

In the mid 1970s BBC Enterprises disposed of much older material where the rights to sell the programmes had expired, whilst the Engineering Department routinely wiped videotapes that were no longer formally required. In 1978 the BBC created the Film & Videotape Library, the first time a permanent archive for all its programmes was established.