I do have reason to believe that the Disney tapes are in Warehouse in Ashford or somewhere in kent. I was on another forum, where there are also doing ALOT Of digging for another ITV company, Strangly TVS is not the only ITV station to see Archive go walkies , Anyways there was some talk about TVS etc and said the tapes are in Warehouse in Ashford. Kept asking where did stuff get moved from when there were doing up Maidstone studio... AS you said its all in the hands of Disney but the tapes are still in the UK, and Disney office in London VIA USA office.
It get WORSE in 2008 ( 5 years after takeover and IFE not seen the light of day) this was the official word from Disney, about another TVS show:
Please be advised that International Family Entertainment ("IFE") owns the episodes of "Catchphrase" (the "Series") that were broadcast on TVS. However, IFE will not be able to license to Challenge TV the right to exhibit.
I have no idea what that actually means, disney were still claiming to wash there hands of TVS, back a few years ago IFE was brought over in 2001 by disney and become part of ABC family channel as part of Disney, The takeover of the content was a different kettle of fish IE MTM was kept by Fox while everything else was just sold off.
This is what causing the utter gridlock, Disney at the top of the Tree, TVS archive is not, and comes under a sub group of another subgroup, of Disney.....
But those tapes are in kent I would not put a bet on as the odds would be so poor
and if the BFI could get a good look around it might be able to found some gems!
what I still dont understand is that Disney in bed with Jim henson company etc via the connection with Muppets etc and it would be them if the UK clips turned up.
If you want I coudl give the email address for the
Executive CounselThe WaltDisneyCompany and , I sure that man still works of them,...