Difference between revisions of "BBC Records"
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Revision as of 07:24, 28 September 2010
[very rough draft]]
The BBC is a big organisation, with a multitude of departments each handling different aspects, from production to administration. The BBC's commercial wing is BBC Worldwide, called BBC Enterprises prior to 19XX. For the sake of clarification, as well as ease of not having to type out the name in full each time, whenever we refer to the BBC, we are generally referring to Enterprises, as they were the ones responsible for selling Doctor Who.
And since the world was a big place, and due to the different time zones, it made sense for the BBC to have a presence elsewhere, other than just in London, where sales could continue to be made around the world while the London was 'asleep'. The BBC therefore established offices in Toronto, Canada, and Sydney Australia, to handle sales in those areas. BBC Sydney was directly responsible for selling BBC product to countries in the Asia, specifically Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong, plus presumably the Philippines, Thailand, Korea (South), Japan, and Bangladesh.
To this end, the BBC London would send copies of programming to BBC Sydney (films would be as negatives from which positives could be struck), who would then copy and distribute these as and when required for the countries that purchased the programmes. BBC Sydney therefore had in its possession at various times from 1964 copies of all Doctor Who episodes, either on 16mm film, PAL or NTSC video tape. BBC Sydney would also liaise directly with the Australian Film Censorship Board (AFCB), who was responsible for viewing and classifying all television programming in Australia.
Australia was the BBC's largest customer, with one station, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission / Corporation) the largest single purchaser of BBC programmes. The BBC valued the ABC's association, and had with the broadcaster as "gentlemen's agreement" in that the ABC had first refusal on all BBC programmes. But the ABC also aid a hefty price for this privilege, usually paying thousands of pounds for each episode, whereas other countries – such as New Zealand – paid only hundreds. The high prices paid by the ABC also contributed much of the needed revenue required to be paid to the various unions (Actors Equity, Musician's Union), which meant that Australia funded almost all the fees needed to be paid by Commonwealth countries up front, which meant that other Commonwealth countries did not have to pay any further fees. (The single draw-back to this arrangement was that should a programme or episode be rejected or A-rated by the Australian censors, meaning it could not air, no other country could then buy that programme or episodes. This is why none of the Doctor Who stories that were not seen in Australia between 1966 and 1974 were also not seen by any other Commonwealth country.)
[Use BBC Enterprises Sydney letterhead as illustration]
[BBC logo]
Within the pages of this website, whenever we refer to BBC Records, it is to be understood that we are referring to the BBC documentation and other paperwork relating to foreign sales of Doctor Who that has been researched by others, and openly made available in the following publications:
Contents
1960s publications
The Frame (issue XX, 19XX). In 1966, Stanmark Productions Ltd attempted to produce a series of radio serials based on Doctor Who, starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor. A promotional brochure was produced; and in this twelve countries were identified as currently screening Doctor who:
An image of the same brochure can be found in DWM XXX.
The Making of Doctor Who
Written by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks, published in April 1972 by Pan Books Ltd / Piccolo Books. On page there is this comment:
This list omits seven countries:
And it appears that the inclusion of Uruguay is an error, as we have found not evidence of Doctor Who screening in that country, either prior to or after 972. We wonder perhaps Uruguay was mistaken for Uganda, which is missing from the list.
Doctor Who - The Sixties
Written by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker, published in XXX by Doctor Who Books / Virgin Publishing ltd. On page XXX;
Presumably, the generic Middle East and Other Arabic countries includes XXXX, XXX, XXXX, and Australasia sand South Eat Asia includes XXX, XXX, XXX.
Of note, this list of countries omits: XXX, XXX, XXX, which raises the question of just how much of the BBC’s record-keeping can be incomplete or contradictory!
Doctor Who - The Seventies
Written by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker, published in XXX by Doctor Who Books / Virgin Publishing ltd. On page XXX there is a table of stories to which Doctor Who had been sold, as acquired from an internal BBC memo dated 28 February 1977:
Algeria (4), Arabia (4), Australia (70), Barbados (2), Bermuda (2), Brunei (10), Canada (6), Caribbean (13), Cyprus (9), Dubai (21), Ethiopia (14), Ghana (5), Gibraltar (26), Holland (9), Hong Kong (53), Iran (7), Jamaica (16), Kenya (7), Lebanon (3), Mauritius (15), Mexico (9), Morocco (3), New Zealand (40), Nigeria (24), Philippines (2), Rhodesia (11), Saudi Arabia (4), Sierra Leone (13), Singapore (58), Thailand (9), Trinidad & Tobago (6), Tunisia (4), Uganda (15), United States (13 ), Venezuela (12), Zambia (36)
The inclusion of Arabia and Caribbean, which are regions rather than countries, appear to be for sales made to Aden and Barbados.
The memo includes all stories from An Unearthly Child up to and including The Seeds of Doom. Whoever compiled the list made a few errors along the way, such as naming New Zealand under four stories it didn’t purchase, and omitting it from three that it did (the correct total for New Zealand should therefore be 39 rather than the cited 40). Other errors in the total have come about because in some cases, some countries are listed twice under the same story heading, resulting in an inflated total for that country.
The countries with incorrect totals are: XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX
The accuracy and relevance of these totals are explored on the profile page of the countries in question.
Doctor Who - The Eighties
Written by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker, published in XXX by Doctor Who Books / Virgin Publishing ltd. Due to space, the following material was cut:
DOCTOR WHO – THE EIGHTIES – LOST MATERIAL
[Direct quote from the site].
OVERSEAS SALES
Doctor Who continued to be sold abroad and in the eighties it was one of the BBC's most popular exported programmes. It was very popular indeed in the American market with numerous Public Broadcast Stations buying the rights to screen it from the BBC's American distributor, Lionheart.
By February 1987, Doctor Who had been sold to and screened in the following countries. This list was produced internally by the BBC and it is not known from what date the sales were detailed. It would appear not to include the sales detailed in the previous book in this series: Doctor Who: The Seventies. The number following the country name indicates how many individual stories were bought by that country: Abu Dhabi (1), Australia (93), Bahrain (7), Bangladesh (5), Barbados (12), Brunei (43), Canada (64), Chile (23), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (3), Dominica (7), Dubai (37), Gibraltar (44), Greece (5), Guatamala (24), Holland (20), Honduras (24), Hong Kong (34), Italy (9), Japan (3), Jordan (4), Korea Republic (4), Lebanon (5), Malaysia (8), Malta (4), New Zealand (71), Nicaragua (24), Nigeria (4), Philippines (13), Qatar (3), Rhodesia (4), Saudi Arabia (25), Seychelles (7), Sri Lanka (9), Swaziland (30), Taiwan (6), Trinidad & Tobago (11), United States (118), Yugoslavia (3) and Zimbabwe (4)
This 1987 memo mentions a number of countries not previously noted in any previous documentation. Presumably the memo includes sales of all stories up to an including the 1986 serial The Trial of a Time Lord.
The list names Dominica, which is most likely Dominican Republic, and also lists separately Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, despite them being the same country.
The authors confess that it is not known from when this list starts, or whether it includes the sales noted in The Seventies. Having seen the original memo that the 1977 list was drawn from, and applying the known stories sold to each of the countries in question, we have drawn the conclusion that the 1987 list does have a degree of overlap with its 1977 counterpart: for instance XXXXXXXXXXX.
The accuracy and relevance of these totals are explored on the profile page of the countries in question.
Doctor Who - The Handbook (Telos)
Written by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker, published in xxx by their own publishing company, Telos Publishing Limited, and based on material previously published in the series of seven Doctor Who Handbooks (one of each Doctor) by Doctor Who Books / Virgin Publishing Ltd, between XXXX and XXXX. On page XXX to XXX there is a summary of, and on page XXX a table, listing the countries blah blah blah
The authors have also taken the opportunity to correct some of the minor errors that appeared in stories per country tallies that appeared The Seventies. (While they have removed most of the duplications, Mexico is still listed twice under the Inside the Spaceship.)
The accuracy and relevance of these totals are explored on the profile page of the countries in question.
Doctor Who Magazine Archives (DWM)
Between xxx and xxx (issues xxx and xxx), DWM published a series of Archives, story by story, researched and written by Andrew Pixley. These Archives (and the Archive Updates in The Complete First Doctor, Complete Second Doctor, etc, series of specials published between XXXX and XXXX) listed the then-known countries to whom each serial was sold, such as the example shown for Robot.
Much of this was extracted from the same documentation such as the 1977 memo mentioned above The Seventies). Another source was independent research undertaken by Stephen James Walker, including records detailing the countries from whom fees were paid for the clearance of music.
Other countries confirmed to have bought Doctor Who that were revealed in the pages of DWM are: France, Turkey
Nothing at the End of the Lane (NATEOTL)
A superb fan magazine, published in XXX and XXX, which explores the world of XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX. Chiefly written and researched by Richard Bignell, Richard Molesworth, Andrew Pixley and others, and drawn on BBC documentation that they have accessed.
Also, Richard Molesworth’s series of articles exploring the BBC Archives holdings in DWM xxx, xxx, xxx; Richards’s articles can be found online at:
Other sources
Other countries to have bought Doctor Who have been identified in other publications book and magazines, such as: DWB, Celestial Toyroom, Starlog, Starburst, etc.
