TIE Ltd

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TELEVISION INTERNATIONAL ENTERPRISES LTD (TIE Ltd)

London-based Television International Enterprises Limited (T.I.E. Ltd) (incorporated in June 1959), its sales subsidiaries Television International Enterprises (Programmes) Ltd / T.I.E. (Programmes) Ltd, Television International Enterprises (Sales) Ltd / T.I.E. (Sales) Ltd (incorporated in January 1962), and other associated companies, was a key player in the television industry in the early 1960s.

The company was created by David Stirling initially to assist third world countries in Africa and the Middle East to establish a television service by providing funding, equipment and technical assistance, usually by way of a consortia with other major industry specialists. TIE was directly responsible for setting up twelve independent TV stations around the world, such as those in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Aden. Once a station was up and running, the company then acted as a representative agency through which television programmes were supplied and advertising slots were sold.

And although "Television" was part of its name, it also had a number of radio stations as customers. (TIE Sales was the US, Caribbean and African distributor for Stanmark Productions Ltd, who attempted to launch a series of Doctor Who radio serials in the 1960s.)

TIE was a regular attendee at television and radio promotion events such as the annual Cannes Television Film Festival, MIP-TV, MIPCOM, and NATPE where sales and distribution deals were made.

Doctor Who was just one of hundreds of programmes for which TIE is known to have promoted and sold.

SALES CENTRES

In the early 1960s, TIE's representation was out of two offices: London and New York. TIE itself was based at 21 Sloane Street, London, before relocating to 22 South Audley Street.

T.I.E. (Sales) Ltd was a joint-venture between TIE and US distributor Overseas Broadcast Services Ltd which operated from offices in New York City.

TIE had a number of additional subsidiary companies with sales divisions around the world – such as TIE (Europe) Ltd, which had offices in Geneva, Paris and Amsterdam, while TIE (Sales) Ltd also handled the Middle East from an office in Beirut, Lebanon (which in all likelihood was vacated during the 1975 Lebanese civil war).

TIE (Sales) was the main representative for the radio and/or TV stations in the USA, the Caribbean and Africa, with countries such as Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Gibraltar, Aden, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda on their books. The London-based parent company, TIE Ltd remained the US and foreign rep for stations in England and Europe only.

US and UK-based sellers looking at advertising their wares on overseas radio and television stations would approach the relevant TIE sales office, who would buy commercial airtime on the stations it acted for. And for those foreign stations that also produced their own radio and television programming, TIE also acted as the agent selling those productions to other overseas markets.

Print ad for TIE Ltd; from WRTH 1966

Print ad for TIE Ltd; from WRTH 1969

Print ad for TIE Ltd; from WRTH 1972

Print ad for TIE Sales Ltd from 1968

One of TIE's other chief functions was to act as a purchasing agent, specifically for those television broadcasters that had limited budgets and contacts or who were unable to attend the programme sales events themselves.

TIE (Programmes) Ltd was the subsidiary that specifically handled programme purchases and distribution, sometimes undertaking the audition process. TIE did not own or store film prints or tapes of radio plays – if it did so, it would have literally thousands of them to keep and maintain – as it was simply a broker. After the ink had dried on the paperwork, the programme supplier took over, providing the film prints and often arranging and finalising any subsequent sales.

By 1971, at the time of the Sesame Street contract (see below) the London office had taken over the UK representation for some of the Caribbean and African stations, as well as new markets in Asia, while the US sales fell under the control of a new subsidiary called TIE States Ltd.

TIE AND DOCTOR WHO

At some point during late 1964 and early 1965, TIE (Programmes) was responsible for acquiring from the BBC the sales rights to the first five serials / 26 episodes of Doctor Who on behalf of four of its clients.

The only known mention of TIE in any surviving BBC documentation is in a BBC Enterprises memo dated 7 July 1965: "T.I.E." is recorded as having "bought prints for showing in Gibraltar, Aden, Trinidad, and Bermuda". The stories named were the first five only, up to and including The Keys of Marinus. (Of note, Bermuda is not named as having TIE (Programmes) Ltd as a "purchasing agent" in any of the print ads for TIE featured here; did TIE cease acting as the purchasing agent for Bermuda TV after 1965?)

The key phrase in the memo is "bought prints for showing in", which might mean "demonstrating in" rather than "for broadcasting in".

HOW MANY PRINTS?

What's not clear from the wording in this memo is whether there were four sets of the 26 episodes (i.e. 104 prints in total), or one single set of the 26 that was to be shared.

The price recorded for this "sale" to TIE was £1,587 2/11 (in pre-decimal currency) at £75 per print – but whether you calculate using 26 or 104, it does not compute! (£75 x 26 = £1,950; £75 x 104 = £7,800.)

Was £1,587 2/11 perhaps a percentage 'deposit' payment, with the balance to be paid later?

An alternative is that TIE purchased just some of the episodes out of that first batch of 26; so, £1,587 2/11 divided by £75 works out (approximately) to cover 20 or 21 episodes. Did TIE buy only 21 episodes to be used as Audition prints, with a random set of episodes being sent to each country for evaluation?

A third possibility is that £1,587 2/11 was the licensing fee that TIE paid to the BBC for the prints (which works out to be roughly £14 per print, which is indeed close to the £12 cost of striking a 16mm print in the 60s), and the very profitable (!) £75 was what TIE was going to charge the countries (either individually or in a group deal), with some of that going to the BBC.

And the fourth likely answer (and the one that we prefer) is that the amount shown is merely a "sum paid so far".

In the case of these four countries and the fact that it was still a relatively new series being offered by the BBC, the "purchase" of these prints may have been for the acquisition of Audition Prints only. In other words, TIE bought the 26 prints for the sole purpose of auditioning them to four of its customers, then once each broadcaster had agreed to take up the series, the BBC took over the sales and supplied the rest of the episodes directly via the bicycling system.

There is no overlap of the airdates for those four countries, which does suggest that there was only one set of prints serving all four.

If there was just the one set, the film prints were likely sent to Gibraltar first as it was the nearest in terms of distance from London, then to Aden, then on to the two Caribbean countries (as noted below, each country may have only received some of the 26 episodes, rather than all of them). All four took up the offer, with the BBC supplying the rest of the prints. And since the Audition prints had already been moved on to the next country of offer, the station probably received a fresh set of the same episodes they had just auditioned.

The very fact that TIE is mentioned only in passing in this memo and not in any other sales documentation (at least, not in any that still survives today) does suggest that its involvement with Doctor Who was perhaps limited only to that particular group of sales in 1965. The BBC certainly would have provided the rest of the prints, and liaised directly with the broadcasters for all subsequent purchases, effectively removing TIE from the equation since its role in the process had ended.

In conclusion, after weighing up the options, our instinct is that TIE supplied each of Gibraltar, Aden and Trinidad with its own set of prints, with Trinidad bicycling its set to Bermuda, and the other two countries bicycling their set around Africa.

SALES REGIONS

TIE sells Sesame Street to Africa; Variety 3 February 1971

Merger announcement, Variety 29 May 1974

Based on the available print ads from the World Radio TV Handbooks from 1964 to 1972 (three of which are illustrated above) TIE (Programmes) Ltd acted as television programme purchaser for the following countries and regions that aired Doctor Who:

Africa

• Ethiopia
• Gibraltar *
• Kenya
• Mauritius
• Sierra Leone

(*Although strictly speaking it is part of Europe, its geographical position may have meant that Gibraltar fell under the category of "Africa")

Caribbean

• Barbados (until 1970 only)
• Bermuda (until 1965 only?)
• Jamaica
• Trinidad & Tobago

Middle East

• Abu Dhabi (after 1972)
• Federation of South Arabia (Aden)
• Saudi Arabia

Our attempts at tabulating some of the bicycling paths between countries within these regions can be seen on the Bicycling Chains page.

"ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE T.I.E. OTHER"

TIE's greatest achievement came in late 1970 / early 1971 when it was contracted by the Children's Television Workshop to sell Sesame Street to broadcasters throughout Africa, Europe and the Far East.

(It may be purely coincidental that the final round of sales of Doctor Who to broadcasters that were on TIE's books - such as Sierra Leone and Ethiopia - were in 1970. Did the acquisition of the CTW contract in early 1971 force the distributor to drop or at least minimise its association with the BBC in order to concentrate on promoting Kermit and co around the world, or – as noted above – had TIE's brief association with Doctor Who already ended in 1965?)

The fact that TIE successfully sold Sesame Street to a significant number of countries in Africa suggests that the distributor may have operated for a time a central distribution point – or "bicycling hub" – in Africa through which the films would be routed. Such a facility would therefore have to store multiple prints of hundreds of episodes of Sesame Street as well as any other programming it was also selling.

However, since TIE Sales had offices in both London and in New York (where the Children's Television Workshop was also based) from which the films would be struck, stored and despatched, and there were already very robust bicycling systems operating in West and East Africa for the movement and temporary storage of films, as far as Sesame Street was concerned, there was no need for a "hub" in Africa, the Middle East or Asia.

In other words, if such a facility existed, it would have been used for the distribution of Sesame Street, but extant documentation indicates that the bicycling system, in which the broadcasters act as "hubs", was used instead.

Distribution centres are discussed in more on the Bicycling Chains page.

THE FINAL DAYS OF T.I.E.

In May 1974, TIE Ltd planned to merge with another London-based international TV distributor, Lane Blackwell Limited; the joint-venture becoming TIE-Blackwell Ltd. But in February 1975, less than one year later, this co-venture came to an end. Lane Blackwell went back to distributing programmes on a solo basis. (Of note, there is no company called TIE-Blackwell Limited registered at the UK companies office. Was the name of the joint-venture changed to something else before being registered, or did the planned merger collapse before it was ever officially registered?)

TIE Ltd continued distributing for at least another decade but in a much-reduced capacity following a major restructure: for instance, TIE (Europe) Ltd was renamed TIE (Fiji) Ltd in December 1976.

TIE Ltd eventually ceased trading in the 1990s. (The company certainly reduced its operations following the death of its founding-director, Sir David Stirling in November 1990.)

TIE (Sales) Ltd was dissolved in June 1999. The parent company was kept under caretaker management in all but name only until it was officially dissolved in 2007.

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