Just A Minute

Dave,
 
Please could you clarify - are your tapes reel-to-reel tapes from a tape recorder, or are they ordinary cassette tapes? 
 
The BBC continually monitor file sharing sites, and complain about BBC recordings found there, if they are still within copyright. All BBC radio and tv shows which first aired less than 50 years ago - i.e. after 1 Jan 1962 - still retain BBC copyright under the 1956 Copyright Act.

BBC Sound Archives hold a vast number of pre-1980 recordings, thousands of items; but they are mostly now transfered to digital storeage. The original LPs and magnetic tapes are mostly placed in the possession of The British Library, once they've been transfered to digital storeage - a process that involves restoring each item to remove hiss and other audible defects.
 
I didn't mean to imply there is no pre-1980 radio archive at the BBC. For many shows, there is. But it does not mean the Just A Minute shows are not held elsewhere inside BBC, on their original tape or vinyl medium. BBC Worldwide may still hold hundreds of unindexed, unsorted episodes of Just A Minute as LP recordings. It would be very difficult to identify which episodes, but I would not be surprised to learn that Worldwide are possessed of all the BBC's holdings, instead of Sound Archives, of this and many other shows.
 
BBC Enterprises were responsible for all overseas sales of all tv and radio shows in the past, and the master recordings for those shows often ended up in an Enterprises storeage facility by default, instead of being handed to Sound Archives. This was especially prone to happen where a series was popular with overseas stations, and so was actively being sold on contract to foreign broadcasters, as clearly occured with Just A Minute, which was popular in Australia and elsewhere.
 
Enterprises was responsible for delivering the LPs to ABC for all the shows which ABC currently air in their 5am slot, 7 days a week. Worldwide has probably inherited a huge stock of episodes for those shows, from the now-defunct BBC Enterprises. But those recordings will not be catalogued/indexed in any meaningful way. They will be unsorted, unindexed, most likely.
 
May I beat you all to the punch, and announce that today ABC aired the 'Romulus and Remus' episode - the final edition of series 4 - for the third straight week. Anyone want to tell them this?