It s not fair! Why is it that so many more old television shows survive in the USA than over here in Britain?
From the outset many live shows in the USA were recorded by pointing a movie camera at a television screen (for which the technical name is a kinescope); these are what’s called “kinescope recordings,” or just “kinescopes”. In some cases (possible as a result of a FCC requirement) these broadcasts were recorded in case someone claimed libel or complained about obscenity or whatever. The main reason for the large number of film recordings is that in the early 1950s the kinescopes were the only means of distributing network programmes to stations that didn’t yet have a coaxial cable or microwave relay connection to carry the programmes live. For instance, in Buffalo they used to get Uncle Miltie a few days late, on film. A vast number of kinescopes were trashed after some legal time limit passed, or when the networks just got tired of storing them, as NBC did once to the vast dismay of most of the world. The recordings we have now are often copies saved by the performers or producers, as
