Proctor & Gamble Has Destroyed Their Library of Soaps

[TMC]

There was an As The World Turns reunion on Zoom today.

Colleen Zenk says she has it on good authority that P&G wiped EVERYTHING.

Roger Newcomb had been hired to digitize and get all of those DVDs out in 2012. When that went south and P&G took the rights back, they destroyed every tape/digital copy of all of their programming. They wanted nothing to do with those soap operas ever again.

[stevea]

These kinds of rumors, claims, and stories go way back in audio and video recording. Because someone starts it doesn't make it so.

On the flip side, properly storing old videotapes, which aren't small, is not something done in a small space. They may want to get rid of them, seeing no use for them, but saying "wipe everything" isn't something that happens overnight.

Yet another thing: I can't imagine a full inventory of videotapes exists for any long-running soap. There probably just isn't enough room, and videotapes are not cheap.

[James28]

"Proctor & Gamble Has Destroyed Their Library of Soaps"?!

...I'm not sure at this point whether this is for real or not.

[biffbronson]

Wiping implies the tapes are being re-used for other programming. It seems doubtful that's the case here - it's probably more likely tapes were tossed.

I'm always hopeful that more and more home video recordings from the 1970s on have been preserved. I was just watching online a 1976 ABC special that had been recorded on a home Betamax machine and the quality was good.

It's a shame if not a crime really when recordings of TV material are disposed of. There are sometimes great stories of recovery. The tapes of a defunct news department in my area, WSJV-TV in Elkhart, were headed for a dumpster in late 2017 until it was arranged for Indiana University to take them for their "Moving Image Collections and Archives."

A guy I'd known (when we were neighborhood kids) delivered 1,591 tapes to IU, where they're being digitized and made available online. Included in the WSJV tapes are stories of Ryan White, the boy who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.

[brambleberry]

Originally Posted by biffbronson

Wiping implies the tapes are being re-used for other programming. It seems doubtful that's the case here - it's probably more likely tapes were tossed.

This is my thought as well. As painful as it is, and I was really only a fan of early to mid 90s Guiding Light, P&G would just trash them if they had them to get rid of in the first place.

Will we ever know the truth? Rights owners love staying silent on the issue. I'm very interested in an anthology series from the 70's and the network that aired it (ABC) still hasn't confirmed or denied they wiped their copies. Some of the movies are thought to be lost. And to make matters worse they were from many different production companies so an official release of all of them is just impossible.

[shandy630]

There's been rumors for years that a warehouse that P&G/Telenext Media stored tapes was damaged in a fire and a lot of those tapes were destroyed. It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[biffbronson]

That's truly a shame. There's such a heritage of TV and films, so much compelling and interesting work that needs to be retrieved if it's extant in any form and preserved.

I'm hopeful that more U.S. television shows can be recovered in a manner similar to how the U.K.'s BBC actively has attempted to rebuild their classic programming library -- with a lot of footage retrieved from other nations, where prints had been distributed decades earlier, and from home recordings.

[shandy630]

Originally Posted by biffbronson

Wiping implies the tapes are being re-used for other programming. It seems doubtful that's the case here - it's probably more likely tapes were tossed.

Back when soaps started shooting episodes, those tapes were reused because they were not cheap back then. So, a lot of episodes from the 50's, 60's, and going into the 70's were not preserved because of that.

Wiping the tapes can also imply that any material on those tapes being removed before the tapes either being tossed or destroyed.

[shandy630]

Originally Posted by stevea

These kinds of rumors, claims, and stories go way back in audio and video recording. Because someone starts it doesn't make it so.

On the flip side, properly storing old videotapes, which aren't small, is not something done in a small space. They may want to get rid of them, seeing no use for them, but saying "wipe everything" isn't something that happens overnight.

Yet another thing: I can't imagine a full inventory of videotapes exists for any long-running soap. There probably just isn't enough room, and videotapes are not cheap.

The other thing is that tapes were reused quite often because tapes were not cheap--especially in the 50's, 60's, and 70's for recording/shooting.

The other thing is that it's been publicly known before GL and ATWT went off the air that PGP/Telenext Media had been wanting to get out of the soap opera genre for YEARS before all of their shows were cancelled. So, it's very likely that PGP/Telenext Media destroyed their library.