Barbados

Bardados is a small island in the Caribbean sea. Part of the West Indies, it was a British colony until it achieved independence in 1966. It is a member of the British Commonwealth.

Profile

Country Number (16)	1966	FIRST and THIRD WAVE
Region	Caribbean	Commonwealth
Television commenced	1964
Colour System	1980	NTSC
Population	1966	250,000
TV Sets	1966	4,500
Population	1984	250,500
TV Sets	1984	52,000
Language/s	English

Television Stations / Channels

Barbados commenced its television service in 1964. Colour transmissions began sometime around 1980, using the NTSC colour broadcast system.

There is just one television provider, the government-owned Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC-TV).

DOCTOR WHO IN BARBADOS

Barbados was the 16th country to screen Doctor Who (see Selling Doctor Who). It was the fourth in the Caribbean.

BBC Records

The Stanmark Productions Ltd advertisement from 1966, identifies Barbados as one of the twelve countries screening Doctor Who in that year.

The Seventies and The Handbook identify only two stories being sold to Barbados: Y and AA. However the books also name "Caribbean" as purchasing 16 stories: G, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, U, W. X, Z, BB and CC, all of which are stories that aired in Barbados.

In DWM, Barbados is identified in 11 story Archives: F, G, H, K, M, N, Q, R, S, U, AA, and Caribbean under ten: L, P, Q, R, T, W, X, Z, BB, CC.

In The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS, a sale of "(12)" stories is recorded for Barbados; this might be an error, as only 11 Tom Baker stories have been identified as screening from 1985-1986, the period covered by the February 1987 memo that is being referred to.

The Tom Baker stories were sold to Barbados (and eight other Caribbean countries) "amongst a package of a ¼ million pounds worth of programmes. These sales were a direct result of a three-day screening of the Beeb's top programmes by BBC Enterprises in Nassau during July", as was reported in the DWAS newsletter Celestial Toyroom (September 1985 issue) (See also Trinidad & Tobago).

Stories bought and broadcast

WILLIAM HARTNELL

Dr Who – episode one, 25 April 1966

The Crusade – The Warlocks, 1 August 1967

The Massacre – Priest of Day, 23 January 1968

Dr Who – 30 December 1985

Genesis on the Daleks Part 1, 24 February 1986

Planet of the Eagle! – 16 June 1986

26 stories, 117 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
S	The Time Meddler	4
T	Galaxy 4	4
U	The Myth Makers	4
W	The Massacre	4
X	The Ark	4
Y	The Celestial Toymaker	4
Z	The Gunfighters	4
AA	The Savages	4
BB	The War Machines	4
CC	The Smugglers	4

Barbados was one of only two countries (the other being Zambia) to purchase the package of available Hartnell stories which ran from An Unearthly Child to The Smugglers), which consisted of 26 stories, 117 episodes:

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

Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks Master Plan were not available for purchase by Barbados, as both stories had been rejected by the Australian censors, a ruling which also prevented the sale of those stories to all Commonwealth countries. Also, Terry Nation was still refusing to permit the BBC selling certain Dalek stories during 1967 while he attempted to sell a Dalek spin-off series to American networks; this moratorium denied Barbados the opportunity of purchasing both The Tenth Planet and Patrick Troughton's first adventure.

Origin of the Prints?

Jamaica had started screening the series a month earlier, and since both countries were supplied by the programme distributor Television International Enterprises Limited (see WRTH), it’s more than likely that Barbados was sent the same set of prints that were used in Jamaica.

TOM BAKER

Twelve stories, 48 episodes:

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
4N	The Hand of Fear	4
4M	The Masque of Mandragora	4
4L	The Seeds of Doom	6

After the Nassau-based sales junket, Barbados screened a package of eleven Tom Baker stories (48 episodes) in 1985 to 1986; the same package of stories was also sold to Trinidad & Tobago.

These programmes were supplied as NTSC colour video tapes.

For reasons not known, neither Baker's debut serial Robot nor The Sontaran Experiment were included in this package; or if they were they did not screen during either run.

Transmission

WILLIAM HARTNELL

Viewers in Barbados enjoyed a non-stop run of the series that lasted for over two years.

The series started on Monday, 25 April 1966, at 6.20pm. The day of the week and timeslot changed to Tuesdays at 6.00pm midway through Marco Polo, where - apart from one timeslot variance during Christmas 1966 period - it remained for the entire 117 week run. The last episode, The Smugglers part 4 aired on 16 July 1968.

The time slot was generally always 25 minutes, which suggests there were no commercial breaks.

Fate of the Prints

Barbados was the last of the four [[:Category:Caribbean]Caribbean]] nations that was serviced by the programme distributor Television International Enterprises Limited (see WRTH). The next of the TIE distribution countries to buy the series was Kenya in Africa, so it's possible (but unlikely?) that Barbados sent its prints to that country.

TOM BAKER

18 years after the William Hartnell run came to an end, CBC-TV (channel 3) screened further adventures of the good Doctor; eleven Tom Baker stories commenced from Monday, 30 December 1985 at 5.25pm, and screened weekly until 8 December 1986. (The World Cup football, Argentina vs Republic of Korea, interrupted the run on 2 June 1986 (screening 4.30pm to 6.15pm), and the programme did not play on 1 December 1986)).

The timeslots changed a couple of times during the 50 week period: most episodes aired at 5.25pm, however the final instalment of Pyramids of Mars aired at 11.25pm, and most of The Seeds of Doom played at 5.40pm.

Interestingly, the stories aired in a somewhat unusual order, with Revenge of the Cybermen, Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars and Planet of Evil playing in production code order. The final three stories aired in the sequence The Hand of Fear, The Masque of Mandragora and The Seeds of Doom for no apparent reason; made all the more odd given that Sarah Jane Smith departs in The Hand of Fear, and appears in the other two!

Trinidad & Tobago was airing the same batch of eleven stories at the very same time. Because Barbados aired the stories way out of order, sometimes they were first to screen a particular serial, and other times Trinidad was first. The closest they came to airing the same episode was with part four of The Masque of Mandragora, on 24 September and 29 September 1986.

These were the stories that aired in Barbados first: 4C, 4D, 4E, 4F}.

The same eleven Baker serials were repeated from 1 February 1987, Wednesdays, at variable timeslots, 5.00pm, 4.50 before settling in at 5.25pm. Again, the stories aired in the same out of order sequence. The repeat run ended on 6 January 1988.

The same repeat run of Baker stories was also repeated in Trinidad & Tobago a few weeks earlier, but two episodes back to back. Due to the cross-over of some of the air-dates, it's unlikely they shared or exchanged the same set of video tapes.

• The nearby island of Saint Lucia was linked by cable feed from the CBC in Barbados, and "aired" the same programmes at the same time. This run of the Tom Baker stories was also seen in Saint Lucia.

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper, Barbados Advocate.

1960s For the Hartnell episodes, the majority of listings named the series as "Doctor Who"; from 13 February 1968 (with The Ark part 2), it was shortened to "Dr Who". Only one episode was identified by name during the first year – 'The Dead Planet", part one of The Daleks.

Part four of The Crusade was printed as "The Warlocks"' (instead of The Warlords); The Chase part three lot its "Through", and was "Flight Eternity"; part three of The Massacre was "Priest of Day";

From 1 August 1967, the newspaper named all but a few episodes by title. In the entries for The Savages and The Smugglers, the paper used the longer title of "DR WHO AND THE ... " format.

1980s All the 1980s Tom Baker listings were named "Dr Who". A couple of errors crept into the listings, with Genesis of the Daleks called "Genesis on the Daleks" (an error that was also applied for the repeat), and part three of Planet of Evil was named "Planet of the Eagle".

• See also Saint Lucia.

Barbados in Doctor Who

• In The Highlanders, Solicitor Grey was planning to send the captured Highlanders to Barbados and Jamaica in the West Indies to be sold as slaves.

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