[civilitty]

> One can't help but wonder how much fantastic material is out there, seen by only a small audience, only to be lost and never seen again.

A lot of BBC content like that is just gone because they used to reuse tapes to save on costs. I don't know if they were still doing it into the 2000s but entire chunks of iconic TV shows like a third of the first six Doctor Who seasons are just straight up gone [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes

[arp242]

They stopped doing that in the 70s, and already did a lot less of that before then. But they also don't archive every minute of what's being broadcast either (no one does, e.g. airing a film you licensed but didn't produce).