Many early videotape recordings were not preserved. While much less expensive (if repeatedly recycled) and more convenient than kinescope, the high cost of 3M Scotch 179 and other early videotapes ($300 per one-hour reel) meant that most broadcasters erased and reused them, and (in the United States) regarded videotape as simply a better and more cost-effective means of time-delaying broadcasts than kinescopes. It was the four time zones of the continental United States which had made the system very desirable in the first place.