THE BBC recently had to ask private collectors for help in finding lost TV treasures. Music programmes and comedy classics – like the best of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore – were all lost when the BBC had economy drives in the 1970s and erased recordings and threw out rolls of film. Turning a blind eye, the BBC has now borrowed back “unauthorised” copies that collectors had rescued from BBC rubbish bins.
You might think that lessons have been learned. But a recent issue of the BBC’s in-house magazine Ariel tells a sobering tale. Terry Smith, the BBC’s head of programme delivery,…
