Beware Hollywood’s digital demolition: it’s as if your favourite films and TV shows never existed | Zach Schonfeld
www.theguardian.com
The amount of media being wiped from the internet is worrying for viewers, and industry workers who need the exposure, says journalist and critic Zach Schonfeld

Last June, fans of Comedy Central – the long-running channel behind beloved programmes such as The Daily Show and South Park – received an unwelcome surprise. Paramount Global, Comedy Central’s parent company, unceremoniously purged the vast repository of video content on the channel’s website, which dated back to the late 1990s.

  • @x0x7English
    100•3 months ago

    This is why pirating is justified. If you want your shows to last forever, torrent them, and keep them seeded.

    • @chonglibloodsportEnglish
      17•3 months ago

      I’ve looked around quite a bit for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. No one seems to have the complete series. The show ran nightly for 30 years and amassed 6714 episodes so it would be quite a large torrent.

        • @chonglibloodsportEnglish
          13•3 months ago

          Ahhhh this is an absolute tragedy. The same thing goes with many movies from the golden age of Hollywood. I love to watch these old films. It breaks my heart that so many are lost forever.

      • @PM_Your_Nudes_PleaseEnglish
        4•3 months ago

        Most of the episodes aired before at-home VHS was common, and TV stations weren’t in the habit of archiving their old footage for nightly broadcasts; The show was viewed as transient since it dealt with current events, and nobody expected people to want to re-watch old episodes. It’s likely that a lot of them aren’t available simply because nobody (including the tv station) has recordings.

    • @[email protected]English
      14•3 months ago

      I wish this worked, but it only does for things that are popular.

      As it stands I think I’m just going to have to back up my entire media collection for fear of not being able to get a copy during retirement - when I plan to watch a shit tonne of TV.

      • @mynameisigglepiggleEnglish
        2•3 months ago

        It’s a shame there is no plan to make consumer grade glass storage.