[Neil Jones]

When I last looked into copies of episodes of various things from the production company, it was something like £35 a tape. This was the early/mid 2000's though.

I notice looking at the BBC's Contributor Access they charge £60. And you don't even get a DVD option these says (they used to offer that or a tape) - it's just a "Digital file (radio programmes supplied as WAV, TV programmes as MP4)". It also has the caveat "If you were offered a free copy by the production team, please contact them directly as BBC Archives cannot provide a copy free of charge. "

Presumably it is (or was?) the same for the ITV companies, though of course good luck using that argument for an appearance or two on Blockbusters that was made by Central, which of course was eaten and folded into ITV plc and no longer exists on its own.

The argument that I think was made about lists of contestants not being available - well that didn't stop the police with the John Cooper case, and while we'll never know if they did or not, presumably somebody from the police went to ITV for a copy of the Bullseye episode he was on (for authenticity I presume) and I suspect they found the material relatively quickly.

Never been totally sure on how much paperwork TV companies keep, but if TVS is anything to go by, it seems pretty vital, otherwise nothing ever goes anywhere. Network did a lot of other clearances as well for their niche products, not that they'll be doing any more unfortunately, but presumably anything important/potentially lucrative the company will have full records for, and anything else (the likes that Network put out) needed rebuilding as it probably wasn't kept.