Broadcasting is a twentieth century industry, and television a post-war industry.
Videotape came into general use thirty to thirty-five years ago. While it is an objective of the proposed research to discover the full size and costs of this problem, from existing data we estimate that at least two million hours of material of national and European significance are at risk. The cost of preserving such material is between 100 Euro per hour for audio and videotapes and 1000 Euro per hour for 16mm film. The total cost of preserving this material using present methods and technology is very roughly one billion Euros. Unless new, more cost-effective preservation methods and technology can be found, the preservation price may simply be too high and significant portions of the audiovisual memory of the last half century will disappear.