Guam
GUAM is a small island to the south of the Philippines in the western Pacific Ocean (Asia). It is a territory of the United States.
Profile
| Country Number (34=) | 1972 | SECOND WAVE |
| Region | Australasia/Asia | |
| Television commenced | 1956 | |
| Colour System | 1967 | NTSC |
| Population | 1974 | 85,000 |
| TV Sets | 1974 | 42,500 (5,000 colour) |
| Language/s | English |
- Since the island is technically part of the United States (which was the 34th country to screen the series), we haven't separated it in the Selling Doctor Who profile, and have counted it with the USA.
Television Stations / Channels
In 1972 to 1974 the island had two television stations: KUAM Television and KGTF Television.
Doctor Who aired on KGTF, Channel 12.
DOCTOR WHO IN GUAM
BBC Records
Guam is named in a memo of overseas sales of Doctor Who, dated 10 December 1973.
Guam is not named in The Seventies, The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS, or DWM.
Stories bought and broadcast
JON PERTWEE
13 stories, 72 episodes:
| BBB | Doctor Who and the Silurians | 7 |
| CCC | The Ambassadors of Death | 7 |
| DDD | Inferno | 7 |
| EEE | Terror of the Autons | 4 |
| FFF | The Mind of Evil | 6 |
| GGG | The Claws of Axos | 4 |
| HHH | Colony in Space | 6 |
| JJJ | The Daemons | 5 |
| KKK | Day of the Daleks | 4 |
| MMM | The Curse of Peladon | 4 |
| LLL | The Sea Devils | 6 |
| NNN | The Mutants | 6 |
| OOO | The Time Monster | 6 |
Guam therefore bought the standard 13 story / 72 episode package of Jon Pertwee stories that was sold to the US by Time-Life Films.
Origin of the Tapes
The television distributor for Guam was Time-Life Films. They supplied the programme on colour video tape in the NTSC format.
Transmission
JON PERTWEE
The series started on Monday, 27 November 1972, at 6.00pm. On the Friday, at 8.00pm, the same episode was repeated. This cycle continued for the entire run.
It's clear from the listings (see below) that the stories did not play in correct story order, with the three season 7 serials airing towards the end of the run, rather than at the start. The identity of the first story to air is not known, but would be The Curse of Peladon, The Sea Devils, or The Mutants, as these are the only three that are not identified by at least one newspaper billing.
From 13 October 1973, the Friday repeat shifted to Saturday afternoons at 3.30pm, and the Monday episode shifted to a 6.30pm timeslot.
Two of the Friday repeats – 9 March 1973 and 20 April - were pre-empted. The missed episodes do not appear to have been rescheduled.
The final episode and repeat aired 1 and 6 April 1974; the series had run virtually uninterrupted for 17 months. However, the tally shows that these were episode number 142, when it should be 144. To account for the "missing" episodes (one first run and one repeat), we have to assume the anomaly occurred near the beginning of the run, because all the named episodes at the end of the run fit correctly within the expected number of airdates. Did the series perhaps commence earlier than 27 November 1972? (But there was certainly no evidence of this in the newspaper.) Or did two episodes air back to back on one of the dates, but with the timeslot still allocated for only 30 minutes?
There is no clear record that Guam screened Doctor Who again after 1974.
Fate of the Tapes?
The nearby Philippines commenced screenings of the series in March 1976; it's possible that Guam sent its tapes there.
TV listings
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← AIRDATES ...... (CLICK ICON TO GO TO TABLE SHOWING EPISODE BREAKDOWN AND AIRDATES - N/S = story title is Not Stated) |
TV listings have been obtained from the Pacific Daily News.
Listings initially gave the series name as the usual abbreviation of "Dr Who". None of the listings for the first few months identify any episodes by title (Not Stated; N/S).
The first named episode is on 16 April 1973 - Colony in Space. After a break of a week, the next episode is labelled only as "(New Series)". But since the next story is named five weeks later, we can assume that The Daemons aired after Colony in Space. The 28 May episode is titled just "The Daleks". Publicity material for this package of Pertwee stories issued by Time-Life referred to Day of the Daleks by that abbreviated title; an 'error' that many US newspapers repeated in the 1970s.
And only on a couple of occasion, such as for The Ambassadors of Death, was a story synopsis given.
From 6 July 1973, the newspaper was generally better with providing titles, through to the end of the run. A few printing 'errors' crept in, with "Mine of Evil", "Time Monsters" (plural), and just "The Ambassadors" appearing on occasion.
There were no billings on 3 and 10 September, or 24 December 1973. As noted above, there were only 142 listings when there should be 144. If Doctor Who didn't air on these other three dates, then we'd have five episodes unaccounted for.
