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Related? There are also missing Beatles performances that were also recorded over by the BBC — one of which (do I have this right?) made an appearance in an early Doctor Who episode? I think that Doctor Who episode is still in tact.

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Correct. The Beatles appearance on Top of the Pops survives only because a clip from that show was used in episode 1 of The Chase.

Ironically, The Chase often has rights clearance issues when it comes to home release because of this. Beatles music costs a fortune to clear, making releases untenable.

Double ironically. This is because the Beatles chose to mime to their studio record for Top of the Pops. If they had played live, it would have been less of a problem.

FYI pretty much nobody played live on Top of the Pops

Nobody sang live, but they were on stage while the filming took place

I seem to remember looking into this once. Aren't large swathes of TOTP itself missing? Like, entire early decades?

Also NASA's Landsat program was facing a severe data tape shortage in the 1980s and it is likely that Apollo 11 data tapes containing the raw video feeds from the moon were erased and reused at this time. (per Wikipedia, and sometimes claimed as "evidence" that the entire mission was faked).

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