Venezuela

VENEZUELA is in the northeast of the South American continent.

Profile

Country Number (22)	1967	FIRST WAVE
Region	South America
Television commenced	1953
Colour System	1973	NTSC
Population	1967	8.25 million
TV Sets	1967	425,000
Language/s	Spanish	Dubbed

Television Stations / Channels

Venezuela began its television service in 1953.

There is just one television station: Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), a government-owned commercial broadcaster, which operated channels 2, 3, 7 and 10.

Colour transmissions began in 1973 using the NTSC colour broadcast system.

Language/s

The principal language of Venezuela is Spanish.

DOCTOR WHO IN VENEZUELA

Venezuela was the 22nd country to screen Doctor Who. It was the first in South America, and also the first to screen the series in Spanish (see Selling Doctor Who). Presumably, Radio Caracas Televisión arranged for the Spanish dubs to be created.

BBC Records

The Seventies records a sale of "(12)" stories by 28 February 1977.

The Handbook however identifies 11, being: B, D, E, F, G, J, K, L, N, Q and R. (The reason for the discrepancy is that Venezuela is listed against R twice.)

The 1977 listing is slightly incorrect, as A and C aren't listed, and D did not screen. There is also some doubt that R screened.

In DWM, Venezuela is identified in 33 story Archives: 12 Hartnells - the same as the 1977 list above, plus C; and 21 Tom Bakers: all the stories from 4A to 4Z, but omitting 4A and 4L. The year given for the Baker sales is 1979.

Stories bought and broadcast

WILLIAM HARTNELL

Eleven stories, 50 episodes:

A	An Unearthly Child	4
B	The Daleks	7
C	Inside the Spaceship	2
E	The Keys of Marinus	6
F	The Aztecs	4
G	The Sensorites	6
J	Planet of Giants	3
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6
L	The Rescue	2
N	The Web Planet	6
Q	The Space Museum	4

Venezuela therefore bought the standard package of the GROUP A to E stories that were dubbed into Spanish.

BBC records indicate that Marco Polo and The Reign of Terror were purchased at the same time as the other eleven, but the sales were subsequently "cancelled" (see the page covering the Spanish dubs for more on this).

Venezuela did not screen The Chase which at the time had been withdrawn from sale during 1967.

The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with Spanish soundtracks.

Origin of the Prints?

Venezuela was the first of the four Spanish-speaking countries to screen the William Hartnell stories. The prints would have been supplied by the BBC in London, but presumably dubbed into Spanish locally.

TOM BAKER?

Despite BBC Records indicating a sale to Venezuela, there is some doubt that his episodes did actually screen. But potentially, the stories that aired were:

23 stories, 98 episodes:

4A	Robot	4
4B	The Sontaran Experiment	2
4C	The Ark in Space	4
4D	Revenge of the Cybermen	4
4E	Genesis of the Daleks	6
4F	Terror of the Zygons	4
4G	Pyramids of Mars	4
4H	Planet of Evil	4
4J	The Android Invasion	4
4K	The Brain of Morbius	4
4L	The Seeds of Doom	6

4M	The Masque of Mandragora	4
4N	The Hand of Fear	4
4P	The Deadly Assassin	4
4Q	The Face of Evil	4
4R	The Robots of Death	4
4S	The Talons of Weng-Chiang	6
4V	Horror of Fang Rock	4
4T	The Invisible Enemy	4
4X	Image of the Fendahl	4
4W	The Sun Makers	4
4Y	Underworld	4
4Z	The Invasion of Time	6

Venezuela therefore potentially bought the standard package of the GROUP A to D of the Tom Baker stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with Spanish soundtracks. (See the page on Spanish editions for the Spanish story titles.)

Origin of the Tapes?

Venezuela was the fourth Spanish-speaking country to (apparently) screen the run of 23 Tom Baker stories supplied via Time-Life Television.

Transmission

WILLIAM HARTNELL

Dr Who, 26 February 1967

The series started on Sunday, 26 February 1967, at 7.30pm. The first run ended eleven weeks later, on 7 May 1967. This suggests it was the first two serials. Intriguingly, the series was listed as "Dr Who" rather than "Dr Misterio".

Five months later, on Sunday, 1 October 1967, the series returned, but now at the morning timeslot of 10.15am. From the third episode, the timeslot changed to 10.00am, where it remained till the end of the run.

The second run lasted 20 weeks, ending on 11 February 1968. But there should have been at least 21 episodes – did two screen back to back during this run but without being billed as such in the newspapers?

Seven months later, an 18 week run commenced, on Friday, 13 September 1968 at 3.30pm, and ended on 10 January 1969. If the run started with The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the last episode would have been The Space Museum part four.

Only 49 episodes have been accounted for in the listings, when there should be 50. As noted above, it's possible that two episodes aired back to back during the second run.

Fate of the Prints?

The next Spanish-speaking country to air Doctor Who was Mexico, in March 1968. It is possible that Venezuela sent its prints of the Hartnell stories to Mexico.

TOM BAKER

Despite checking several Venezuelan newspapers for 1979 and 1980, we have not been able to find any listings for Tom Baker's run.

• See THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING MISTERIOS

There is no clear record that Venezuela screened Doctor Who again.

---

PAUL McGANN

The 1996 TV Movie was available via the HBO OLE cable station in 1999.

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper El National and El Diario.

All the 1960s listings gave the series name as "Dr Who" or "Doctor Who" (for the 1968 run) other than the usual "Dr Misterio" that was used by Spanish-language countries (a mixture of both titles was used in Mexico.)

None of the episodes are identified by title.

Venezuela in Doctor Who

• Amelia Ducat says she likes the Venezuelan Gobot flower (The Seeds of Doom)

Links

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  • William Hartnell stories
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