Radio Downloader & Archives

[Christopher Woods]

Believe me, the archives are there, at least for the last decade (for the 
most part). Ultimately the people want to, at least informally, preserve 
output.

There hasn't, yet, that I'm aware of, been One Plan to Store Them All (And 
In the Darkness Find Them, a few years later) for legal, technological, 
cost and political reasons. In the 60s and 70s there were also some Very 
Poor Decisions (but then hindsight is always 20:20)

Undoubtedly the corp and Worldwide are well aware of the beauty of depth of 
content, given a shifting global marketplace and demand for old and new 
programming in overseas markets. Archive is gold.


Over the coming few years, the ability for the corp to quickly access 
archive recordings will become MUCH simpler as workflows are improved and 
the rest of the organisation goes fully tapeless -- but rights issues 
remain at the forefront of most conversations, tieing the hands of many 
stations who would enjoy being able to rebroadcast archive material 
(including some of Mike Harding's old shows, no doubt).

Bear in mind almost all of the specialist shows have, for some time, been 
produced by external organisations using a combination of BBC studios and 
private studios. Just because things make it to air doesn't necessarily 
guarantee subsequent broadcast rights. (ah, copyright...)


The capital costs of archiving the sheer amount of finished programmes the 
Beeb produces / broadcasts has always been a chore; the space required just 
to house tape in archival conditions is ridiculous. Bits and bytes are 
procedurally simpler but by no means necessarily cheaper because you have 
to substantially harden your infrastructure.

Nerd essay over...



On 17 July 2013 20:32:21 Chris J Brady <chrisjbrady at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Try yet again - again - 
>  
> > One of the reasons I am keen to 'listen again' to audio broadcasts from 
> the Beeb and elsewhere is that programmes are rarely repeated, especially 
> folk programmes. Take the Mike Harding Folk Music & Song series. Once he 
> got the push he was never heard from again. His slot was taken by one Mike 
> Radcliffe (like 'who?'). Harding's previous programmes will never he heard 
> - ever again. [He now privately podcasts new ones.]
> >
> > The Beeb's total lack of interest in archiving its own recordings is 
> legion. Not only did it wipe out thousands of comedy progs, and folk progs, 
> etc., in the 1960s-90s, it had to rely on home-tapers to retrieve many of 
> its 'lost' programmes. Hence the infamous Treasure Hunt. [BTW the 9th ep. 
> of the TV Lark is STILL missing.]
> >
> > The role of get_iplayer and Radio Downloader etc. is simply that of a 
> tool for a home-taper who in previous years might have recorded off-air 
> using reel-reel tapes or cassette tapes. The Beeb's complaint about RD 
> breaking DRM etc. is pure nonsense. 
> >
> > I personally have many 'lost' folk and comedy programmes. We know the 
> former were junked by the Beeb because the reel-reel masters were found in 
> a skip behind Radio Manchester Studios. They were 'rescued' but then 
> disappeared into a private collection. I have cassette versions from 
> off-air recordings - the only extant copies. Other programmes have been 
> recovered from home-tapers in New Zealand. When approached to donate copies 
> the Beeb scathingly replied "not interested."
> >
> > So as far as I am concerned the Beeb is only reaping what it has sown. 
> Many in the OTR fraternity have large archival collections of long 'lost' 
> radio programmes. One main reason for this - apart from the production 
> qualities being far superior to modern ones - is that the radio stations 
> including the Beeb are simply not interested in archiving minority genres, 
> e.g. folk, and are certainly not interested in keeping programmes of such 
> in the public domain where they belong. 
> >
> > CJB.
> >
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