BBC Archive recordings

[smittims]

I suppose this has been aired here some time but I couldn't find it. An old question revived;

Why doesn't Radio 3 play more of their (I suppose ) rich archive of recordings? Are there copyright or other agreements which prevent it, or do they think we're not interested?

They can do it sometimes. I recall a 1944 Boult 'In the South' (recorded by the BBC transcription service in Bedford ),a 1964 Proms 'Mass of Life' conducted by Malcolm Sargent, and a Bartok suite by Geza Anda from a 1950s Edinburgh Festival.

Sometimes they've come out on CD. In the 1990s Carlton Classics did some splendid issues of little-known British music , by almost-forgotten but fondly remembered artists such as Frank Shipway and John Pritchard. This was succeeded by 'BBC Legends' not so good for me as all the artists had to be 'Legends' i.e. internationally 'acclaimed' .

I'd love to hear again a 1960's Liverpool 'Apostles' also Sargent, with Owen Brannigan a magnificent Judas, or the complete 'Perfect Fool' broadcast around 1967.

[makropulos]

the complete 'Perfect Fool' broadcast around 1967.

Broadcast 7 May 1967. It has recently been reissued on Lyrita (REAM 1143), by the BBC under licence to Lyrita. Yes, it's well worth hearing again.

[Bryn]

Regarding copyright, recordings made before 1952 are now public domain. See https://assets.publishing.service.go...recordings.pdf

[Opinionated Knowall]

Why doesn't Radio 3 play more of their (I suppose ) rich archive of recordings? Are there copyright or other agreements which prevent it, or do they think we're not interested?

I think there are various reasons, of which the copyright issue is one. The difficulty is tracking down all the musicans involved to get permissions and make appropriate payments. Even more of a problem is that very few of the current staff know what there is, and what is valuable and worth repeating. Lastly, the BBC Sound Archive is in the most astonishing state of chaos. They don't even allow academic researchers access, and I believe the reason is that they don't want to admit what a shambles it is. It's a great shame, because as you say, there are probably hugely valuable things there. I seem to remember Stephen Johnson presenting a series of evening concerts of repeats of archival material, but that must some years ago, as he doesn't seem to be heard on Radio 3 these days.

[cloughie]

I suppose this has been aired here some time but I couldn't find it. An old question revived;

Why doesn't Radio 3 play more of their (I suppose ) rich archive of recordings? Are there copyright or other agreements which prevent it, or do they think we're not interested?

They can do it sometimes. I recall a 1944 Boult 'In the South' (recorded by the BBC transcription service in Bedford ),a 1964 Proms 'Mass of Life' conducted by Malcolm Sargent, and a Bartok suite by Geza Anda from a 1950s Edinburgh Festival.

Sometimes they've come out on CD. In the 1990s Carlton Classics did some splendid issues of little-known British music , by almost-forgotten but fondly remembered artists such as Frank Shipway and John Pritchard. This was succeeded by 'BBC Legends' not so good for me as all the artists had to be 'Legends' i.e. internationally 'acclaimed' .

I'd love to hear again a 1960's Liverpool 'Apostles' also Sargent, with Owen Brannigan a magnificent Judas, or the complete 'Perfect Fool' broadcast around 1967.

There were many radio performances by the BBC orchestras conducted by Bryden Thomson, Norman Del Mar, James Loughran, Mariss Janssons, John Carewe, George Hurst, Edward Downes - the list goes on - I doubt we’ll ever hear any of them again - let’s face it in the scale of things and the Great Hierarchy of BBC needs its low priority stuff.

[Mario]

Forgive my ignorance, as I don’t know broadcasting laws.

I understand that, for example, Only Fools & Horses, which is repeated incessantly, brings the actors a nice income through repeat fees.

As I say I don’t know, but might the same apply to radio programmes? Does the BBC have to pay repeat fees to performers of past broadcasts?

There must be an absolute goldmine in the BBC archives!

[Serial_Apologist]

Why doesn't Radio 3 play more of their (I suppose ) rich archive of recordings? Are there copyright or other agreements which prevent it, or do they think we're not interested?

I think there are various reasons, of which the copyright issue is one. The difficulty is tracking down all the musicans involved to get permissions and make appropriate payments. Even more of a problem is that very few of the current staff know what there is, and what is valuable and worth repeating. Lastly, the BBC Sound Archive is in the most astonishing state of chaos. They don't even allow academic researchers access, and I believe the reason is that they don't want to admit what a shambles it is. It's a great shame, because as you say, there are probably hugely valuable things there. I seem to remember Stephen Johnson presenting a series of evening concerts of repeats of archival material, but that must some years ago, as he doesn't seem to be heard on Radio 3 these days.

As regards the sentence I've highlighted, it only re-inforces the point I made the other day on another thread with regards to successive generations of staff becoming incrementally less able to pass on the levels of knowledge and capacity for imparting them to an evermore uninformed listening public, which in turn "justifies" the BBC's accelerating demolition job on everything us older people once valued, from which perspective we direct our criticisms against those in charge.

When the National Jazz Archive was set up in Loughton by Digby Fairweather in 1998, a couple of volunteer enthusiasts went in and spent months, years even, sorting and archiving the huge wealth of books, periodicals, documents and memorabilia donated and bequeathed. There are possibly quite a few of us oldies who would relish a chance to come over and sort out the BBC Sound Archive in return for warm winter premises and canteen lunch gratis.

[cloughie]

Forgive my ignorance, as I don’t know broadcasting laws.

I understand that, for example, Only Fools & Horses, which is repeated incessantly, brings the actors a nice income through repeat fees.

As I say I don’t know, but might the same apply to radio programmes? Does the BBC have to pay repeat fees to performers of past broadcasts?

There must be an absolute goldmine in the BBC archives!

Were it not for Gary Lineker’s pay packet they’d be able to afford more repeat fees!

[Mario]

I can't get BBC TV here of course.

Haven't seen MotD for many years.

So, is he worth it? £2m a year?

[Ein Heldenleben]

If I can scotch a few myths . The BBC video and sound archives are not in a state of chaos or at least they weren’t the last time I worked there a few years back.if anything they’ve never been easier to search.
Actors in drama generally get repeat fees or residuals. They are not a great deal of money even if you are David Jason. Musicians (as performers ) generally get bought out i.e. no repeat fees. But music contracts are often not the same as drama - big pop or classical stars and their record companies can often insist on no repeats or , more importantly no digital rights I.e. no repeats on iPlayer or Sounds.
Often what stands in the way of repeats of older programming is not the lack of material or repeat fees (which aren’t very much) but because the original paperwork (the contract) has been lost or damaged. That is the fate of paper …

[french frank]

In 2008, the BBC appointed a Director of Archive Content. The then D-G, Mark Thompson, said:

"The BBC has the largest audio-visual archive in the world. We want to make sure there is greater public access to this archive, whilst also ensuring the archive is fully exploited for the benefit of licence payers."

Quite what the 'greater public access meant', I don't know, but I think I probably misunderstood. Giving free rein to my imagination, I thought this meant that as content was digitised it would be made available On Demand. I suspect in the case of the classical music archive that wouldn't have been welcomed by the record industry (RW was in hot water over the free downloads of the new BBC Phil special recordings of Beethoven Symphonies).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/07_july/22/archive.shtml

[Ein Heldenleben]

In 2008, the BBC appointed a Director of Archive Content. The then D-G, Mark Thompson, said:

"The BBC has the largest audio-visual archive in the world. We want to make sure there is greater public access to this archive, whilst also ensuring the archive is fully exploited for the benefit of licence payers."

Quite what the 'greater public access meant', I don't know, but I think I probably misunderstood. Giving free rein to my imagination, I thought this meant that as content was digitised it would be made available On Demand. I suspect in the case of the classical music archive that wouldn't have been welcomed by the record industry (RW was in hot water over the free downloads of the new BBC Phil special recordings of Beethoven Symphonies).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pr.../archive.shtml

What that meant was greater access to those archive elements (chiefly news , documentaries and features ) that the BBC had complete ownership of. That unfortunately doesn’t include always drama, music, light entertainment , sport and the like. I worked on a project which put a huge amount of material available as part of the Creative Commons project - literally thousands of hours of stuff.

[Mario]

Thanks for the clarification EH.

A minor, rather insignificant little work in the Proms coming up...

[smittims]

Thanks for these intersting replies. I remember especially a series of plays with famous incidental music, broadcast about 50 years ago: Hassan, the Starlight Express, and The Wasps, the last a full-cast production, much better than the Halle 'one-man show' about twelve years ago. I think they were BBC Wales , produced by Raymond Raikes.

[richardfinegold]

It sounds like it would be a great retirement project for a dedicated group of interested seniors, perhaps with some graduate students, to at least the contents and perhaps make some available in the same fashion that lending libraries lend ebooks.