Have started checking the Betas so far. Four items so far have had commercials, including interestingly both a movie named Country Gold and a special named Country Gold, all on the same night (9/3/1983), off of two different stations (WHIO and WDAY) in the Dayton market. Another contained most of a big band-themed syndicated New Year's Eve special off of WXIX IIRC on 12/31/1982 w/commercials. Another taped contained a late moive recording with commercials from New Year's Weekend 1983 off WDAY. Most of the content so far has been zapped out, though I've kept a tape with an episode of This Week in Country off TNN in August 1984 as well as a two-hour (edited to 90 after the ads/credits were paused out) special episode of the rather short-lived series This Week In Country, a special counting down the twenty biggest hits in Country Music for 1981, with Mickey Gilley hosting. There was even a segment where Big Bird and Crystal Gayle had a duet. '81 was an interesting year for the country genre in America since it came on the heels of the Urban Cowboy/Dukes of Hazzard boom, but it was before MTV in '82-'83 made purple and even a bit of blue state America put the saddles and hats away. There were also a couple short (20-30 minute) clips of footage from a couple Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethons. Still have about two-thirds to look through.
Even though the content is mostly newer, I just purchased another lot on eBay today based out of an Orlando seller. The trick to this one was how the labels were numbered over five different tape lots. Back in 2018, I purchased a couple lots of tapes from a seller based in Northern CA and asked for the boxes with the lower numbered taped (crainbebo also purchased one as well), and this yielded me the 1985-87 content off Sacramento (and a few Fresno and Monterrey/Salinas) stations, many off of Tom La Brie's Night Comfort Theatre, but there were things like the 1986 Rose and Cotton Bowl parades, several episodes of Donahue, an episode of The Tonight Show from 1987, a gymnastics competition from the same year, and even part of the '87 Portland Rose Parade.
Well this time, I used a similar trick, and although the seller listed the content as '90s and up with a few late '80s, I happened to identify across the numbering system based on the first two lots that it appears that the lot I purchased consists of recordings from 1986 (with the Dynasty season finale marked on that tape) up through around the summer of 1992 (tape #45, with five of the first 40 tapes likely missing from the recorder's hands). Most tapes appear to be SLP/EP recorded, and if the tapes with the number of episodes on them confirm, hopefully these will contain commercials. Just checking out the labels themlselves shows the potential gold to be found on these, and I like the one (#12) that says "dance videos" along with the two GH episodes. I'd presumably feel that it was recorded around late 1988 or early 1989 or so based on what #13 says, "Dynasty Season Finale '89", which turned out to be the series finale for that great primetime soap, unless if you count the 1991 "Reunion" movie. Still, I'm looking forward to searching this lot, and managed to haggle the shipping down to Media Mail pricing, and it came on a 5% eBay Bucks day as well, effectively reducing most of the sales tax.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-40-...UgHy1nQCB8%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc
After all these years of tape searching, I find that there are certain genres where commercials are more likely to be left in as opposed to being paused out, and generally speaking, soaps tend to have a slightly better rate of being left intact, likely due to people working or off to school at the time, as opposed to early evening and primetime programming, which are more likely to be zapped. Late night movies (and overnight programming after midnight or so) are almost always taped with the ads/promo breaks intact since few bother to stay up and press pause. On the other hand, I find that music performances are far more likely to be scoped out than sitcoms, which are still more likely to be edited out than dramas and specials, which in turn are more likely to be scoped than TV movies. Newscasts are almost always found intact (often in partial form) since those are usually not intended to be recorded. Finally, I find that 1980s content is more likely paused out than 1990s, which in turn is more likely zapped than the 2000s stuff, which you could probably figure out the logic just by reading this thread. Still, it shows that once you become an expert, it takes a bit of skill along with some luck to find those great finds.
