Copyright Status
Until late September 2009, Desert Island Discs could not be heard on the BBC's iPlayer service, which allows most programmes to be heard up to a week after transmission. The programme's website explained this was due to rights issues, as explained in The Sunday Times in 2006:
Because Plomley was a freelance, Desert Island Discs became his copyright. After his death in 1985 it went to his wife, Diana Wong. She still owns it but is now in her eighties and their daughter, Almond, acts for her. Mother and daughter and the BBC agree on the need to have Plomley mentioned in the credits and the corporation pays Diana an annual sum (£5,000 in 1996, so probably more now). However, the family and the BBC cannot agree on the availability of the show after its weekly broadcast. This is why it is not available to listen to via the BBC’s website.
It was announced on 27 September 2009 that an agreement had been reached with the family that the programme would be available to stream via the iPlayer. The first castaway available through the Player was Barry Manilow. Subsequently, the programme was also made available as a podcast, beginning with the edition broadcast on 29 November 2009 which featured Morrissey. However, due to music clearance issues, the music selections on the podcast versions are reduced to only playing for around thirty seconds or so (and in rare instances are unavailable, as mentioned in an announcement made by Kirsty Young during the appropriate point of the programme).
On 30 March 2011, the BBC placed over 500 episodes from the show's archive online to listen to via iPlayer.
In the early days of the BBC, programmes were broadcast live and generally not recorded. This, in addition to the BBC's policy of wiping that was present during the 1950's and 1960's, means that very few episodes from the first 20 years of the show are known to exist. Several extracts from various episodes were preserved for posterity at the request of the guests, such as a recently released extract featuring the appearance of Alfred Hitchcock where he speaks in detail about his film Shadow of a Doubt.
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“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)