Lost British TV: Excavation?

With regard to any agency that the BBC, or ITV, did business with during those, have been properly been combed by the likes of Phillip Morris, and Ian Levine. The official channels have pretty much been exhausted. Theories persist of private collectors refusing to return, or even mention it, as the BBC has pretty much been less than cooperative. The BBC had even tried sending cease and dessists to collector. Aside from that, if you were to look at South Africa, that had been sanctioned in the 70s, and didn't get television until mid-70s. To work around sanctions, many private individuals, and film libraries from that area would pay broadcast engineers, film collecters, et cetera, top dollar in order to secure reels. On the American side, 10 000 cuts is an extraordinary account of that time. on the British side, South Africa was situated close to Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe), and even though South Africa had no BBC links, Rhodesia was largely British. As mentioned previously, South Africa did not have ttv introduced until 1975, but during that time 8mm, a nd 16mm film projectors were a mainstay in every household, and common place. Since South Africa was sanctioned, illegal means were used to get copies of popular programs from abroad. The most famous example would be the Avengers, technically speaking, South African shouldn't have known about its existence, but the reels were very popular, and even resulted in a popular radio show in 1972. I have come accross quite a few of the catalogues of these film libraries, and every now and then, some of these collections will pop up at auction. When it comes to their preservation status, most South Africans are completely unaware, and most instances not even aware of the cultural significance of what they have. For lost British shows, Africa is your best bet.

The reason, why he's not forthcoming with information is collectors. One of the episodes that he had found was literally sold from right under his nose to a collector. With regard to those avenues, the official avenues have been exhausted already in the late 80s by fans, and collectors. Ian Levine is a prominent figure in that regard. Predating the lostmediawiki on the internet, you've got a website like missing-episodes. The majority of these episodes are found in private hands, the isntructions that were given out by the BBC, was not to merely dump it, but to destroy it, of course if the cost was to great to return. What would sometimes happen is they would resell it onto the market to collectors, or they wouldn't destroy, and merely dump it in a dumpster, two episodes of Dad's Army was found this way in the late 70s, two Doctor Who episodes were found this way in Australia in the same time period. Even when it was dumped, it wasn't done with any regard, they simply chucked it like they would any other piece of trash. If there was a location pinpointed, I can almost assure you, it has been redeveloped, but if we're being poistive, take a look at the amount of time, money, and effort, it takes to coordinate in the documentary, Atari: Game Over. The fact of the matter is there was piracy on a large scale during that period, this would be your best bet.

Missing episodes forum.
Missing episodes website.
Kaleidoscope's website.
The wikipedia page on Kaleidoscope.
The news of the recovery of the Dad's Army episodes.