Glad you mentioned Heartbeat. Used to be glued to that show. My dad and I used to be big fans of it, so we had recorded a lot of early (mostly original) showings of it on ITV. I’d say I have about 90% of the episodes on tape, the majority of them when they were originally aired, though there are some from the first and second series that are second showings, but thankfully they are uncut for content and no music has been changed. There are also one or two separate recordings from these series that were recording from UKGold, but i think they cut the violent bits out due to being shown in the afternoon. From series 3 onwards almost every episode I have was taped when first aired (adverts not recorded apart from the odd one), with the original music (Beatles originals incl). Speaking of Beatles music, but I wondered if music rights was the reason why the used Joe Cocker’s version of “Let it Be” at the end of the do were Dr Ferrenby dies?. Btw, this was used in the original broadcast, so mayve just been down to suitability rather than rights issues.
Shame the DVD versions have had their music altered. Not sure if this is correct, but I think they changed the music in the series 5 ep where the two girls crash their MG and Nick and Maggie rush over to see the BeRo Man. The music they used was “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, and I thought that song really suited the scene perfectly. When I came across a clip of it online the music was completely different.
This is why these days, my philosophy is to record anything of interest during the first run - because that might be the only run! Or subsequent airings could fall afoul of music rights licencing or other issues. A classic example is Coast to Coast: a 1987 BBC film that has never been repeated and has never received any kind of home video release and according to the production company and co-star Lenny Henry, it never will because the cost of negotiating a licence with Motown for the soundtrack would be prohibitive.
On subject of UKGold, its sister channel Drama now airs early Eastenders episodes but often cut for language - which is strange because it was acceptable to broadcast those same episodes on Sunday afternoons for the omnibus slot during the 80s! Regarding Heartbeat, it’s now airing daily on ITV3 and from what I can gather, with the original soundtrack. I’d love to block record and preserve the entire lot but it would involve a phenomenal amount of work due to the volume of episodes!