Canada

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Canada

CANADA is of the North American continent, and shares its borders with the United States.

Profile

Country Number (3) 1965 FIRST and SECOND WAVE
Region North America Commonwealth
Television commenced 1946
Colour System 1966 NTSC
Population 1966 19.9 million
TV Sets 1966 5.1 million
Population 1976 22.659 million
TV Sets 1976 9.39 million
Language/s English also dubbed into French


Television Stations / Channels

Doctor Who sold to Canada; Winnipeg Free Press, 31 August 1965

Canada has a number of major television networks providing broadcasts across the country. The country is also served by broadcasts from several hundred small privately-owned commercial stations across all the Provinces.

During its regular runs on Canadian television, Doctor Who was screened by these known broadcasters:


After an eleven year gap, Doctor Who returned, screening simultaneously on (at least these) three channels:


When TVO lost the rights, the series was picked up by:

  • YTV from 1989 to 1994


The one-off TV Movie debuted on:


The final stations to screen the Classic series were:


The TV Movie was later shown several times on:


A selection of Tom Baker episodes was available on Air Canada's in-flight entertainment systems during 2014


Of course, for many Canadians, another primary source of Doctor Who were PBS broadcasts from the US states that bordered with Canada. For instance, WTVS in Detroit, Michigan could be viewed in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and many parts of southern Ontario; and KSPS in Spokane, Washington, was available in southern British Columbia and Alberta. The many PBS stations operating out of the northern regions of New York state were also available in southern Ontario and Quebec, while the Maine Public Broadcasting Network could be received in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.


DOCTOR WHO IN CANADA

Canada was the third country to screen Doctor Who (see Selling Doctor Who). On 9 December 1964, a 16mm film print of the first episode was evaluated by technical quality advisers.


DALEK MOVIES

PETER CUSHING Movies

The first Aaru movie played in theatres across Canada. The initial release dates are not known, but the earliest newspapers listings we can find are from Ontario in late July 1966. The film was being shown in Edmonton theatres by October 1966. It was still being played in provincial theatres three years later - usually in a double bill - such as at the Chateau in Pine Falls, Manitoba in April 1969.

Sault Star Ontario, 1 September 1966
Winnipeg Free Press, 22 April 1969


The second film did not get released at all in North America. But both films screened several times on Canadian television - see the sections on CKVU, YTV and SPACE.


BBC Records

The Stanmark Productions Ltd advertisement from 1966, identifies Canada as one of sixteen countries screening Doctor Who by January 1966.

Canada is not included in the list of 27 countries in The Making of Doctor Who (1972 Piccolo edition).

The Seventies records a sale of "(6)" stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook identifies five of these to be: A, B, C, D and E. The sixth story is the Pertwee serial UUU.

The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS records a sale of "(64)" stories (by 10 February 1987).

As far as we can determine, this total is made up of the 14 Pertwees that aired on CKVU and TVO, plus 37 Tom Baker and 13 Davison serials that were sold to TVO.

In DWM, Canada is identified in 57 story Archives: five Hartnells (the same as above); no Troughtons; 16 Pertwees; 27 Tom Bakers; seven Davisons; no Colin Bakers; and two McCoys. The sales years are given as 1965, then 1977 to 1989. These 57 are a combination of the CBC and TVO screenings. (DWM includes Canada in AAA, FFF, and 4W, which must be a mistake, as those three did not screen in Canada until the 1990s.)


CANADIAN AIRDATES

The usual categories – Stories Bought and Broadcast, Transmission, and TV listings – are detailed on a separate profile page for each of these broadcasters:


Books and Novelisations

The 1972 Pan Books Ltd / Piccolo edition of The Making of Doctor Who has a Canada price of 95c printed on the back cover. This is an unusual item to be on sale in a country that had had a very short run of Doctor Who seven years earlier, and was still four years away from seeing any of the Jon Pertwee stories.

For many years the Target novelisations were readily available in Canada – the back covers of most but not all of the books bear a price in Canadian dollars. (From 1983 to 1989, CANCOAST BOOKS in Toronto, Ontario, is identified as the distributor.) New books published in 1976, 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1992 do not have Canadian prices (*).

The Daleks novelisation (1973) with Canadian price
  • 1973: 95c
  • 1974: 95c; $1.25; $1.35
  • 1975: $1.35
  • 1976: none
  • 1977: none
  • 1978: $1.50
  • 1979: $1.50; $1.75; $1.90; $1.95; $2.50
  • 1980: $1.95; $2.25; $2.50
  • 1981: none
  • 1982: none
  • 1983: $3.75
  • 1984: $3.95
  • 1985: $3.95; $4.50
  • 1986: $3.95; $4.95
  • 1987: $4.50; $4.95
  • 1988: $4.95; $6.95
  • 1989: $4.95
  • 1990: $4.95; $6.25; $6.50
  • 1991: $5.95; $6.25
  • 1992: none

The first Doctor Who The New Adventures novel, Timewyrm Genesys was priced $8.75 in 1991, but Canadian prices did not appear again until 1996's Just War ($6.99). The final New Adventures, The Dying Days, was $7.99 in 1997.

(*) One of the reasons why a Canadian price is absent from the books published in these years may be due to the agreement signed between the Canadian government and the European Economic Community (EEC) in July 1976, which provided Canada with mutual commercial and economic cooperation. And then in 1982, Canada was granted greater political independence from the UK. Of course, this could be a coincidence...


Canadian Merchandise

Waddingtons Canadian jigsaw of Andrew Skilleter's Sontaran poster print

There are only a few known examples of items of merchandise that are exclusive to Canada. In 1984, Waddingtons Games Canada released four 500-piece Doctor Who jigsaw puzzles; these featured artwork of Omega, Davros and the Daleks, Sontarans, and K9 taken from Andrew Skilleter's Profile Prints series.


Canadian Fandom

The Canadian fan club, Doctor Who Information Network (DWIN) was founded in 1980; they produce the excellent fanzine ENLIGHTENMENT.


On 25-26 May 1985, Jon Pertwee appeared at the Who Party 7 convention in Kitchener, Ontario. He was interviewed for CKCO-TV:

    • CLIP: JON PERTWEE INTERVIEW for CKCO
    • CLIP: JON PERTWEE AT WHO PARTY 7







We are grateful to Enlightenment, Michael J Doran, Ed Conroy, Alex Frazer-Harrison, Graeme Burk, Doug Orlowski and especially Randy K Howell and Hugh Pearson, for research material and general information about Canadian broadcasts.


Canada in Doctor Who

Introduction to Marco Polo; Winnipeg Free Press, TV Listings 1965

In a way, without Canada, Doctor Who wouldn't exist!

  • SYDNEY NEWMAN, the man who devised Doctor Who, was born in Toronto in 1917
  • Andrew Cartmel, the series' script editor from 1987 to 1989, grew up in Canada aged 5-15, and saw the series on CBC


Several Canadian-born actors appeared in the series:


Other references to Canada include:


Links