Lithuanian national broadcaster calls on public to share lost archive recordings

Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) has launched a campaign called Dingusios juostos (Lost Reels), urging the public to contribute archival audio and video recordings that may have survived outside its official collections, the broadcaster reported on Saturday.

The initiative, marking LRT’s centennial, seeks to recover historical footage and broadcasts lost during decades of neglect, destruction, or technical limitations. Many recordings—particularly from radio—were never preserved because live transmissions were prioritised over archiving, while others were damaged or disappeared during the Soviet occupation.

“For a long time, television was associated only with live broadcasting, and no one bothered to make recordings,” said Tomas Vaitelė, an archivist at LRT. He noted that radio archives are even scarcer, as tapes were expensive and reused. “Sometimes we see material online or on YouTube that we’ve never encountered in our own archives.”

Gytis Oganauskas, deputy director general of LRT, said the campaign aims to uncover “what we only know today from contemporary press or surviving photos.” The broadcaster is accepting submissions in any format—audio cassettes, magnetic tapes, or even 16mm film—until 12 June, the anniversary of Lithuania’s first radio broadcast in 1926, when the words “Alio alio, Lietuvos radijas, Kaunas” (“Hello hello, Lithuanian Radio, Kaunas”) first aired.

The Soviet army’s 1991 occupation of LRT’s headquarters further devastated its archives. “They smashed equipment, poured acid on what they couldn’t break,” Vaitelė recalled. “A lot of film and sound reels went missing.”

LRT hopes the public may hold private copies of broadcasts thought lost, including fragments of early television or radio programmes never officially archived. “We don’t know what to expect,” Oganauskas admitted, “but we’re counting on surprises.”