I've trawled the internet looking for this, with no success. Elsewhere, it has been said that the BBC has all of the episodes in its archives. The problem of making these available to the public is, presumably, one of finance. In 2003, Greg Dykes, BBC Director General, said at the Edinburgh International TV Festival :
"For many years we have had an obligation to make our archive available to the public, it was even in the terms of the last charter. But what have we done about it?
Well,you all know the problem.
Up until now, this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn't been an effective mechanism for distribution.
But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that. For the first time, there is an easy and affordable way of making this treasure trove of BBC content available to all.We intend to allow parts of our programmes, where we own the rights, to be available to anyone in the UK to download so long as they don't use them for commercial purposes.
Under a simple licensing system, we will allow users to adapt BBC content for their own use.
We are calling this the BBC Creative Archive.
When complete, the BBC will have taken a massive step forward in opening our content to all - be they young or old, rich or poor."
How far this has advanced, I don't know. Whether the Count of Monte Cristo would be high up the list of programmes to be digitised, who knows? We, here, all obviously agree on its merits!
November 2008 and nothing has changed; I wonder whether we will ever see this fantastic series ever again. I can still hear Alan Badel's voice in my head: this was what made it special for me. I had a small portable tape recorder at the time, 15 minutes per side, and I listened to the tapes over and over again. I still keep hoping.
March 2009 If Midnight_Voice is prepared to start a FaceBook campaign, I'm all for it!