We have received an appeal for any VERY old TV programmes that you might find in your loft… or shed! Any format will do, just get in touch!

Ed Stradling writes:-

"I work in archive TV, and when not working I spend a lot of time curating old TV presentation (some of which appears on The TV Museum online youtube channel). I made this video to mark TV Centre's closure and  a couple of years ago I did a presentation at the BFI of old BBC Christmas "pres" down the years. 

Hundreds of old VHS and Betamax tapes come my way for this reason, from various sources, but these tend to date from the early 1980s onwards. Before that, as many of you will know, there were only two cassette formats available, Philips and UMatic.  I'm sure there are a lot of 'tech ops' or production staff out there who have some of their old programmes hidden away in a loft on Philips tapes in particular, with no way to play them as the machines have all conked out, and the rubber belts in many cases have turned to mush. 

I've now got a reasonable store of machines that will play the tapes, so if any readers of this forum out there have UMatic or Philips tapes with 70s and early TV content gathering dust, let me know, and later this year or early next, once I've gone through the tapes I have waiting here at the moment, I'll get in touch with a view to transferring them to digital.  

The last thing anyone wants is for these tapes to get stuck in a loft for 30 years and then get thrown out by our next of kin.

Bear in mind that Philips tapes aren't as simple as VHS, where you can just put the tapes in and away you go. A lot of the tapes need baking before they can be played, it takes on average a day to process probably 2 1hr tapes, and it's only me doing it. So if I get swamped, then it might take a while. 

In the meantime if there is an old trailer or an old show you made in 1983 or whenever, which you're dying to see again, let me know, I may well have it."

Ed can be contacted by email at:-
ed (DOT) stradling (AT) btopenworld (DOT) com