Early TV History

• The Alexandra Palace Television Society
• 405 Alive - early television, band 1 television
• The World’s Earliest Television Recordings - Restored - Baird 30-line recordings

 

TV History - general

• Vintage Broadcasting - many audio/video clips. Includes The Colour Television Receiver Film
• Meldrum Home Page
• Kaleidoscope
• HTW - Historical Television Website
• Tech-Ops
• TV and Radio Bits - history features and idents etc.
• TV Fetish - features, idents, Tv gold

 

Classic Programmes - broadly-based lists, episode guides, summaries, articles

• TV Cream - witty synopses of 100s of programmes
• Square-Eyed TV - many episode guides and lists
• The Mausoleum Club - episode listings, DVD/video reviews and release dates
• Television Heaven - articles and programme synopses
• 1950s British Television Nostalgia
• The British TV Missing Episodes Index
• British Drama Website
• British Comedy Website
• Action TV
• UKTV Index - details of over 200 classic programmes, mostly British
• TV Comedy Resources
• TV On Trial -  a search to discover Britain’s greatest tv decade. 26 classic clips

Classic Programmes - specialised sites

• Thank Your Lucky Stars - ABC’s 1960s pop music series
• The Trumptonshire Trilogy - popular children’s animated series
• Upstairs Downstairs - costume drama; one of ITV’s greatest ever successes
• It’s Prof Again: the ‘Vision On’ Website - ground-breaking children’s programme
• The Professionals - LWT’s gritty “crime-action-drama”
• Adam Adamant Lives - 1960s action adventure series
• Clenched Fists: The Official Dennis Potter Web Site
• The Trap Door - 1980s children’s model animation series
• A Family at War - Granada’s WW2 series. Website made with cooperation of series creator John Finch
• Grange Hill Online - popular children’s school series, now 30 years old. Newly listed
• Are You Being Served? - the long-running 1970s/1980s sitcom. Newly listed

 

International Sites that Include British TV

• Television History - The First 75 Years - American, British and other TV history
• Memorable Television - indepth information about British, American, Australian and Canadian TV
• TV Acres

 

Top

Missing Programmes, Rediscovered Programmes, Archives

• Raiders of the Lost Archive - new ITV initiative to find TV’s 50 most wanted missing programmes
• "Auntie, We Have a Problem" - Guardian Apollo 11 article, 15/7/99. See also corrections to this article
• Missing Episode Hunting - How the unplayable amateur moon landing video recording was discovered
• The British TV Missing Episodes Index - Names and dates of the individual missing episodes of many well-known programmes. Plus articles
• Missing from the Archives - By Stephen Wolterstorff. Lists and comments
• The BBC Archives - 1973 Listener article about BBC archive wipings and policy
• British Telefantasy - Contains details of archive holdings of 1970s science fiction programmes
• Doctor Who Gateway - Best starting place for links to Dr Who missing episodes and recovered episodes
• Till Death Us Do Part - (Kaleidoscope page) Private collector returns 16mm print of 1960s sitcom
• Do Not Adjust Your Set - (Kaleidoscope) Thames/ABC discoveries during remastering
• Television Classics Rediscoveries Bonanza. - (Kaleidoscope) Various 1996 recoveries
• Somewhere in Time - (Kaleidoscope) Early 1990s rediscoveries
• Classic British TV - Including Timeslip archive info and missing Doomwatch synopses
• Classic Telly - Archive details of certain series - mostly cult
• Square-Eyed TV - Includes Counterstrike, Doomwatch and A for Andromeda missing episode details
• The Needs For And The Means To Exploit Archives of Television Material - By Sue Malden. Contains information on archive formats and remastering
• Oxford Television Studies - Archive issues in early television. (pdf)
• Dad’s Army - Appeal for lost episodes of the popular sitcom
• BBC Treasure Hunt - Help return lost programmes to the BBC
• Enter: The BBC - Treasure Hunt news by Mark Brown
• Out of the Unknown: the Lost Episodes Resource
• Adam Adamant Lives - Includes missing episodes details and transmission formats
• A Question of Sport - appeal for missing first episode broadcast in 1970 (BBC)
• BBC2 opening night video tape - includes 6-minute video clip (BBC News page)
• The Quest for Missing UK Television

Online Archive Data Bases

• Infax - BBC archive programme information (programmes are not available for viewing)
• ITN Archive - includes Granada/LWT programmes (information only - not viewing)

Idents, Continuity, Test Cards

• The TV Room - UK and Irish television
• TV Ark
• TV Home
• The Continuity Booth
• Andrew Wiseman's 625 Room - Plus general tv articles
• Sub-TV
• Vintage Broadcasting
• TV and Radio Bits
• The Test Card Circle - test cards, trade test films, start-up sequences

 

Archive Sales

• Archive TV From BFI Video Publishing - British Film Institute sales
• BBC Learning Videos and DVDs - Special interest videos

 

Biographies

• links will appear here

 

Television Technology, Production Methods and Studios

• BBC Research & Development Reports -   includes 1960s standards conversion development, 1960s digital research and an account of the Telstar colour tests in 1962
• Tech-Ops - highly recommended
• Sky HD - high definition information
• BBC HD - high definition
• BBCEng.info - Recollections of BBC engineering from 1922 to 1997
• An Incomplete History of London’s Television Studios - very detailed and well written

 

TV Programme Restoration

• The World’s Earliest Television Recordings Restored - Baird’s mechanical-TV recording
• The Needs For And The Means To Exploit Archives of Television Material - By Sue Malden. Contains information on archive formats and remastering

 

Early Home Video Recorders

• Total Rewind Virtual Museum - History of home video in Britain.
• LabGuy's World - Sony Half Inch Skip Field VTR Includes explanation of the skip field system
• The Video Page - 1960s Philips home video recorders, including a 1964 model
• Mickey’s Vintage VTR Page - Very clear photos

 

Forums

• British TV History - our own forums
• Missing Episodes - general forum and Top of the Pops special section.
• Television Heaven
• The Avengers
• RT Forum - Dr Who film/video restoration and remastering. Confusing posting guidelines.
• Blakes 7 Discussion
• The Ian Levine Doctor Who Discussion Forum

 

Other Resources

• Artifact - includes large section of TV and media links