A much-loved TV show – by us anyway – from the British television archives remains the terrific KYTV. This was the television version of the Radio 4 show Radio Active, which brought together Angus Deayton, Helen Atkinson-Wood, the late Geoffrey Perkins, Michael Fenton Stevens and Philip Pope.
The heart of the show was the very low budget satellite TV company KYTV, and across the three series of the show, we got episodes such as the legendary KYTV tellython, the channel tunnel special, the quite brilliant Fly On The Walls, and the controversial Talking Head.
The logistics of the show were such that there were gaps of at least 18 months between the series, and it finally came to an end on 22nd October 1993. More recently, the team – less, sadly, Geoffrey Perkins – have reunited for more Radio Active.
KYTV is one of many shows underserved by DVD, though. The first two series of the show were eventually released on frill-free discs in 2006. But presumably down to poor sales, the announced January 2007 release of series three never happened. Ten years later, there’s no sign of it still. With the demise of the online BBC Shop, even a streaming version now looks a long shot.
A real shame, too. The first two discs are long out of print, although series 2 at least can be found for under a tenner. But let’s add KYTV to the list of shows that deserve far better treatment on disc than it’s got.