Ethiopia
Ethiopia is located in east Africa.
Contents
Population
When Doctor Who screened in Ethiopia in 1970, the population was less than 25 million, and licensed TV sets numbered less than 20,000 (per WRTH, 1974).
TV & system
Ethiopia began its television service in 1964.
There is just one television station: Ethiopia Television Service, a government-owned commercial broadcaster.
Colour transmissions began in 1979 using the PAL colour broadcast system.
Language/s
The main languages of Ethiopia are Amharic, Oromigna, and Tigrinya. English is also recognised as a secondary language. From the evidence given in the TV listings (see below), Doctor Who aired in English (possibly also with subtitles in Amharic?)
DOCTOR WHO IN ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia was the 33rd country to screen Doctor Who (the 12th of the 13 African nations). Significantly, it was also the very last country to screen Marco Polo, The Reign of Terror and The Crusade, three of the missing or incomplete stories (see Selling Doctor Who).
BBC Records
The Seventies records a sale of 14 stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook identifies these as being: C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q and R.
In DWM, Ethiopia is identified in the same 14 story Archives.
Sierra Leone was the previous African country with distribution by TIE Ltd (see WRTH); so it’s possible that Ethiopia was sent the same set of prints that had screened in Sierra Leone by the end of 1968.
Stories bought and broadcast
WILLIAM HARTNELL
Sixteen stories, 77 episodes:
| A | An Unearthly Child | 4 |
| B | The Daleks | 7 |
| C | Inside the Spaceship | 2 |
| D | Marco Polo | 7 |
| E | The Keys of Marinus | 6 |
| F | The Aztecs | 4 |
| G | The Sensorites | 6 |
| H | The Reign of Terror | 6 |
| J | Planet of Giants | 3 |
| K | The Dalek Invasion of Earth | 6 |
| L | The Rescue | 2 |
| M | The Romans | 4 |
| N | The Web Planet | 6 |
| P | The Crusade | 4 |
| Q | The Space Museum | 4 |
| R | The Chase | 6 |
Ethiopia therefore bought GROUP A, B and C (bar The Time Meddler of the standard package of William Hartnell stories. It was the very last country to air the run of stories from The Romans to The Chase. IT is not known why The Time Meddler was omitted.
The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.
Transmission
WILLIAM HARTNELL
The series commenced on Thursday, 22 October 1970, and aired weekly on the day, until it switched to Wednesdays just shy of a year later, from 22 September 1971. As noted under TV Listings below, it is not clear when the series ended, or whether any episodes were pre-empted. If the series ran uninterrupted, the 77th and final episode aired on 5 April 1972.
The start time ranged from 7.00pm to 7.35pm.
There is no record that Ethiopia screened Doctor Who again, even after the switch to PAL colour in 1979.
TV listings
TV listings have been obtained from the English newspaper The Ethiopian Herald.
The first direct listing for Doctor Who was on 5 November 1970: "The Fire Maker" (sic). The following week it was "Dr Who – To Be Announced". The week after that it was "Dead Planet". The next six episodes are clearly The Daleks, followed by Inside the Spaceship and Marco Polo. Therefore, the episode labelled "Fire Maker" would actually have been "The Forest of Fear", part three of An Unearthly Child.
"500 Eyes" is the final titled episode (4 February 1974). Many of the subsequent newspapers were missing, or didn't have any TV listings. The times when there were listings, all they gave was "Dr Who (Film English)", "Dr Who (F.E.)" or close equivalents.
The fact that the programme is identified as being "Film" and "English" does support the thought that the programme was indeed broadcast in that language.
There were no TV listings between 26 January and 14 June 1972. From 21 June 1972, the 7.00pm timeslot was occupied by The Abbot and Costello Show. It is not known when that programme began its run. If Doctor Who ran uninterrupted, then its 77th and final episode (The Chase part six) aired on 5 April 1972.
Listings initially gave the series name as Dr Who????
Fate of the Prints
Being the last ever country to air the English soundtrack prints of the standard GROUP A, B and C package of William Hartnell stories, the Ethiopian Television Service either returned its prints to the BBC in London after April 1972, or had them all destroyed...
Ethiopia in Doctor Who
There are no instances where Ethiopia is mentioned in the series.
In the mid-1980s, the FAN AID campaign was launched by Paul Cornell with the aim of raising money for famine relief in Ethiopia. Cornell, along with many helpers and assistants, organised a successful convention in Bath and released some interesting and informative fanzines, managing to raise a total of GBP 32,165.
References
