I’m Hannah Cooper, blogging about various parts of British archive television. I believe television history should be accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and I aim to share the parts that I find fascinating and enjoyable.

Whenever I’m asked how I got into all this, I try to explain that it’s often been a domino effect of one thing leading to another, plus a bit of natural curiosity. A child of Doctor Who‘s 2005 revival, it was UKTV Gold’s omnibuses that first really pushed me down a slippery slope of archive television. It was always something that grabbed my interest so I grew up stumbling across plenty of well-known comedy and drama, before starting to read more histories, and diving down curious-looking rabbit holes to seek out more programmes – helped enormously by the wonderfully varied output from Network (RIP).

Much of my online writing has been supported in some way by Transdiffusion, where you can find more archive TV related writing. I previously embarked on the Back in Time for TV project, where I spent a week in each year as I followed the TV schedules for the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Although I’ve a particular interest in 1970s television, all television broadcasting history interests me. I do explore other decades and I’ve started to spend more time in the 1950s with the Time Flight project.

You can find television-related book reviews from me at We Are Cult.

You’ll hear me guesting on various podcasts (many are posted on this blog), with Doctor Who podcast Trap One being my regular hang-out.

I’ve written for Doctor Who Magazine and contributed to The DNA of Doctor Who: The Philip Hinchcliffe Years book with a chapter on how film and videotape was used by television productions in the 1970s.

If you would like me to write something interesting or say something nice on your podcast, do get in touch.