TV Movie

Story Code: TV Movie / Season -	UK Airdate: 27 May 1996	Doctor: Paul McGann
First airings by location	UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite	Previous Story / Next Story

This story aired in the following known countries. They are listed in chronological order according to known airdate. If no month is noted, the actual airdate is not confirmed, and is a close approximate. (Refer also to Selling Doctor Who for expanded airdates.)

Fox TV Movie poster ad, May 1996

Presskit for the TV Movie

Screen grab of French title caption

Canada	12 May 96
United States	14 May 96
United Kingdom	27 May 96
Australia	7 Jul 96
New Zealand	30 Oct 96
Greece	1996 or 97
France	18 Mar 97	Le Seigneur du Temps / Docteur Who: Le Film
Poland	1997
HBO OLE Cable	From Feb 99
Luxembourg	27 Feb 99	Le Seigneur du Temps
Finland	2 Apr 99
Italy	1999
Netherlands	5 Aug 99
Ireland	1 May 00
Brazil	27 Jul 00	Doutor Who - O Senhor do Tempo
Czech Republic	9 Sept 00	Doktor Kdo
Austria	24 Jun 01
Iraq	17 Feb 02
Lithuania	25 Jul 03
India	25 Sep 04
Norway	2005

Fox aired the movie on over 150 channels in the United States.
- List of Fox stations in 1996
In the UK, the movie was officially released on VHS tape on 22 May 1996, five days ahead of its broadcast on BBC1 (with some stores staying open late on 21 May to sell the tape from midnight). The tape and the TV version were edited to remove scenes of repeated gun-fire (in the wake of the recent mass shooting at a school in Dunblane, Scotland) as well as some other graphic content.
The Movie was marketed by Fox and BBC Worldwide as a "Movie for Television" and therefore it had a far wider international sales distribution; the film was screened in a number of countries that had never seen the series.
The film was available on the In-flight TV Systems of Singapore Airlines, and was shown 99 times between July and September 1996 by British Airways. It was also available on Merchant Navy vessels (although of which countries is not known - see list of possibilities HERE).
The French dub of the film - with the title Le Seigneur du Temps - screened in France, Luxembourg, and on the Canadian station Ztélé.
The Movie was also distributed on VHS tape by Universal's home entertainment division, MCA/Universal/CIC Video, to many other countries around the world; these commercial releases (either subtitled or dubbed) were mainly for the rental market, and for a handful of those countries, the series had never been shown on TV, and the video tape was the only form in which Doctor Who was known - See the list below.
The Movie aired on UK Gold on 7 February 1998, BBC Choice on 22 November 1998, by BBC Prime on 2 and 7 May 1999, with a third showing on 30 December 1999 - the actual date on which the story is set!
In February 1999, the Movie was available to several Central and South American countries via the HBO OLE cable link.
On 13 November 1999, the uncut US version (with the "Based on the original series broadcast on the BBC" caption intact) was shown during BBC2's Doctor Who Night special event.
Sci-Fi Channel's UK/Europe station aired the film for the first time on Saturday, 2 November 2002, and then several more times during the next ten months. It aired again on 25 August 2008 - twice!
The film also played several times during 2002 and 2003 on Sci-Fi's channel in South Africa.
It has also aired numerous times on various other UK and US cable and satellite stations, too many to try to catalogue here.
On 31 August 2013, BBC America screened the movie as part of The Doctors Revisited series.

TV Movie on VHS

Between 1996 and 1998, the movie was released on rental or sell-through VHS (published by MCA/Universal/CIC Video, sometimes through a local distributor) in several countries that did not screen the movie on TV. The tapes were either (S)ubtitled or (D)ubbed. In most cases, the title was simply "Doctor Who" (using the movie's logo), but some countries gave the tape an alternative title (see the merchandise sections in the relevant country profiles for cover slicks and further details):

Australian VHS cover

Sweden (S)
Spain (S)
Argentina (as El Doctor Who) (S)
Mexico (S)
Hong Kong (laser-disc as 時空謀殺案) (S)
Germany (D)
Japan (S)
Hungary (D)

Tapes were also released in a number of countries that did screen the movie on TV. Some of the tapes ((S)ubtitled or (D)ubbed) had an alternative title that was different to that used on TV (see the merchandise sections in the relevant country profiles for cover slicks and further details):

Brazil (also O Senhor do Tempo) (S)
Australia
New Zealand
Italy (D)
Netherlands (S)
Finland (as 1999 Maailman Tuho) (S)
Czech Republic (as Boj S Časem) (D)

The Movie could not be sold on tape in the United States or Canada due to a conflict over the rights: the worldwide VHS rights to the film were held by Universal while the North American VHS rights to Doctor Who the series were owned by CBS/Fox Video; Universal therefore couldn't distribute tapes to a territory that it didn't have the rights to.