"Are We Living In A Golden Age Of Archive Television?"

[AndrewP]

Had this article flagged up to me... and was delighted to read some text written by somebody very articulate who writes with clarity, passion and understanding about how wonderful it is to be able to access shows such as "The Strange World of Gurney Slade" and "The Goodies" on physical media. I suspect that the author is most likely of an age never to have seen these programmes on their original run or in their childhood... which makes it all the more charming and delightful for me. How lovely to see the work of companies such as Network being appreciated when they cover these niche releases and try to add bonus value. It's just so nice to read something like this and go: "Hey! Somebody who gets this!"

https://www.indiependent.co.uk/are-we-l ... elevision/

All the best

Andrew

[Brock]

"This desire for a full view of the shows is reflected in Network’s treatment of The Goodies. A comedy series as popular and experimental as Python, the show has never been repeated on television."

Not actually true...

[stearn]

If only there was a database of Radio Times listings going up to a decade ago when the BBC started publishing their schedules online

[Brock]

If only there was a database of Radio Times listings going up to a decade ago when the BBC started publishing their schedules online

In fact the cut-off date for Genome makes it look as though there have been no repeats since 1986, with the single exception of "Winter Olympics" in March 2006. The week of repeats in December 2010 falls outside their scope.

It's a pretty shoddy error though!

[stearn]

BBC.co.uk/programmes picks up where Genome ends - that is why it ends with the last edition of 2009. /programmes was started around the middle of 2007, although it didn't cover everything then. By the start of 2010, all the channels were present and being populated with data, so there was no point in scanning Radio Times to get what was already available. It does mean that two sources have to be consulted.

As an aside, it also means that for the period where /programmes starts to where Genome ends, there is probably a full, or near full, regional representation, with each taking up some shortfall of the other.

I wonder if this was just picking up from someone else's incorrect statement or relying on memory.

[ian b]

Most of these shows were only available in poor quality on DVD...

Uh?

[Brock]

I wonder if this was just picking up from someone else's incorrect statement or relying on memory.

Well of course the Goodies themselves did spend rather a long time complaining that the show hadn't been repeated, to the extent that it became a running joke on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...

[stearn]

Another running joke was that Tim didn't get any work outside clue, which obviously wasn't true. There was one round - famous peoples answerphone messages - with TBT's - "Hi, this is Tim Brooke-Taylor, whatever it is, I'll do it!"

The Goodies was one of the first things I managed to get taped off of Sky (in around 1992/3), when Sky's comedy channel broadcast a dozen or so.

[Mark]

I certainly remember taping the edited ones from UK Gold when it started.