Posted by Peter Ceresole on July 26, 2008 at 08:02:46 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Ransome on film/video? posted by John Wilson on July 26, 2008 at 06:31:27:
They were on expensive quad tape, and the unions sought to limit repeats.
I don't think the unions were much of a factor here. Mainly:
The tape was expensive, and also very bulky, and storage was (and is) itself very expensive. As producers, we'd regularly get memos asking us if a specific programme, made some years before, should be kept, or not, so that they could recycle the tape or reuse the space. Along with that weeding process, the Beeb has been copying a lot of those 2" quad tapes to more modern cassette formats- I think to Digibeta, but I'm not certain about that. Although this considerably reduces the storage space and improves the robustness of the recordings, it has cost a lot of money.
The artists' contracts would limit the number of repeats, as would the contracts for any bought in material such as purchased film. Renegotiating those contracts can be an extremely expensive business.
Overseas sales were often on film (which were preserved by the BBC Film Library)
As are the tapes... In a series of large sheds in Brentford on the Reynard Mills Trading Estate.