Wiped?
-
I doubt they're wiped. There are certainly some people with copies of them. I know that on their website Challenge? asked if there was any particular series of KM that people particularly enjoyed. I suppose that a lot of people mentioned Series 3 in their answers- as is likely, if the results of the favourite series vote on this site are anything to go by- and so it was the one (hopefully the first of many) Challenge? chose to show.
-
Maybe I'm just being a little melodramatic, but it's made me wonder.... how come Challenge have only started showing episodes from Series 3? Does that mean that the tapes from series 1 and 2 have been deleted? If not, why haven't they showed them?
The first two or three series are on obscure video formats, two inch quad tape I think it was. This requires a special machine to play and thus dub from.
You may be aware of "the great purging" of archive video material. This stopped in 1978, at least so far as ATV and the BBC were concerned.
Nobody wipes stuff deliberately in the same way now as they did then, as it's all extra money if they can sell it either abroad or to niche stations like Challenge.
As for Challenge only starting from Series 3 - because they want to.
-
All of the series' of Knightmare are still held on film, including the pilot from 1986.
BBC stopped getting rid of archive material in about 1978 as Neil said, when they realised they were paying 10x more to other companies for material they wnated to buy back. (eg dr who, most of the black and white eps were wiped in 1972-1974).
Poor BBC lost a LOT of money due to this, and are still doing so now. They have learned their lesson....
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login