Canada

CANADA is in the North American continent.

When Doctor Who screened in Canada in 1965, the population was 19.9 million, and licensed TV sets numbered only 5.1 million (per WRTH, 1966).

Colour transmissions began in 1966 using the NTSC colour broadcast system.

Television Stations / Channels

During its run on Canadian television, Doctor Who was screened by five different broadcasters:

• CBC (1965)
• CKVU (1976 to 1982)
• TVO (1976 to 1989)
• YTV (1989 to 1994) "YOUTH TELEVISION" (YTV)
• SPACE (1997)

BACKGROUND OF EACH STATION TO GO HERE

CKVU commenced regular broadcasts one week ahead of TVO.

DOCTOR WHO IN CANADA

Canada was the 3rd country to screen Doctor Who (see Selling Doctor Who).

BBC Records

The Seventies records a sale of "(6)" stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook identifies five of these to be: A, B, C, D and E. The sixth story in the 1977 list was the Pertwee storey UUU.

The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS records a sale of "(64)" stories (by 10 February 1987).

In DWM, Canada is identified in 57 story Archives: 5 Hartnells (same as above); no Troughtons; 16 Pertwees; 27 Tom Bakers; 7 Davisons; no Colin Bakers; 2 McCoys.

Due to the nature of broadcasts in Canada, we will cover each station in turn.

CBC (1965)

WILLIAM HARTNELL

Five stories, 26 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

Canada therefore bought GROUP A of the William Hartnell stories.

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

Transmission

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Canada had regional screenings, with different cities across the country airing the series at different times according to the world time zones, but on the same day.

The series started on Saturday, 23 January 1965, at 5.00pm on the CBC channel 3. From 21 April, the series moved to Wednesdays (with the third serial). For the final 6-parter, the series screened on weekdays, from Monday, 28 June to XXXXXX.

Fate of the Tapes

Received and viewed part one on DDDDDDD. UNKNOWN

TV listings

• AIRDATES FOR CANADA

1960s

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper Globe and Mail from Toronto.

CKVU (1976-1982)

CKVU commenced broadcasts from Sunday 4 September 1976, from 4.00pm.

DR WHO AND THE DALEKS - PETER CUSHING

JON PERTWEE

XXX stories, XX episodes:

.

Canada therefore bought xxxxDDDDxx and of the Jon Pertwee stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Ark in Space was the last story to air on ABC for a while… although 4D, 4E, 4F, 4H are censored in 1975/76 and placed into storage… 4D and 4E aired in mid 1977. (Zygons in Feb 78.)

In mid-1976 Canada picks up the ‘first refusal’ rights…

Canada: also sold through Time-Life (and later Lionheart), so would have been supplied with dupes from the same NTSC tapes as USA.

Interestingly, Season 10 and 11 stories were not made available to the US until mid 1983, which means these NTSC conversions were done solely for these Canadian sales - RRR and UUU being the only two available that BBC London still had in full PAL colour at that time. (Frontier and Planet not done probably because BBC London no longer had all in colour]) - but why not PPP? Did BBC London also no longer have PPP available on PAL? (Was the only copy available one held by BBC Australia? / Was the fact that ABC had a longer version of ep 2 have any impact on the availability of PPP elsewhere?) [PPP wasn’t made available to US stations until late 1983…]

It’s possible (unlikely?) that PPP wasn’t able to be converted to NTSC due to technical reasons - but these were resolved by 1983, when the serial was able to be supplied to the US market.

Green Death, Death to the Daleks, Monster of Peladon, Planet of the Spiders are all newly converted to NTSC for this sale to Canada.

Taking into account that OOO screened as part of the second batch, I will assume it was sold along with the first (but simply scheduled later): The FIRST batch (1976) was: GGG KKK MMM NNN OOO RRR UUU (32 eps) The SECOND batch (1977) was: TTT (newly available) XXX YYY ZZZ (22 eps)

Australia’s first to screen rights on TTT expire (after three years), so Canada is able to purchase TTT.

TV ONTARIO

After an eleven gap, the returned, skipping the entire Patrick Troughton era, and starting with Jon Pertwee in The Three Doctors – guest-starring Patrick Troughton! 26 episodes aired without break from 18 September 1976 to 12 March 1977.

Then, six months a second run, of 28 episodes, commenced n Friday, 16 September 1977. During this run, The Green Death aired, which was the first time that serial has screened since its UK broadcast in 1974. (It was "rejected" in Australia in 1973, and unable to be screened in the Commonwealth. The fact that Canada screened it – and therefore paid for all the rights clearances – meant that Australia and New Zealand were able to screen the serial in 1978.)

TVO - REPEATS 1979 The Three Doctors 1979 Day of the Daleks 1979 The Curse of Peladon - returned by 4/81

TVO - REPEATS 1980 The Time Monster - returned by 4/81 1980 The Green Death 1980 Death to the Daleks 1980 The Monster of Peladon 1980 Planet of the Spiders

CKVU – VANCOUVER

CKVU began broadcasts (channel 21) from 1 September 1976 - so DW can’t have started until then.

No details know – except they aired Inferno in 1979.

NOTE: It’s been thought that CKVU actually got the full 13 story Pertwee package (plus Green) [and some of S11??] rather than just these six, for which airdates are unknown. It seems they may also have gotten season 11 at the same time as TVO got them (which may explain the two Canada listings for Monster of Peladon in the music clearances), as well as the ‘dregs’ of what was available of the earlier Pertwees that TVO didn’t purchase.

ALTERNATIVE THOUGHT: TVO bought a batch of ‘old’ Pertwees, plus TTT and Season 11 CKVU bought the remaining ‘old’ Pertwees that TVO didn’t want, plus TTT and Season 11 [screening on repeat until 1982] [A factor that goes against this thought is that both channels got GGG; but none bought PPP - WHY?]

Transmission

Fate of the Tapes

A number of the NTSC colour video tapes of Pertwee stories that had screened across Canada, were found and returned to the BBC, replacing many episodes that the BBC only held on black and white 16mm film:

From CKVU, by March 1983:

• Colony in Space
• The Sea Devils

From CKVU, by December 1983:

• Inferno

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper Globe and Mail from Toronto.

TVO (1976-1989)

JON PERTWEE

XXX stories, XX episodes:

.

Canada therefore bought xxxxDDDDxx and of the Jon Pertwee stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Transmission

- some Pertwees

Fate of the Tapes

A number of the NTSC colour video tapes of Pertwee stories that had screened across Canada, were found and returned to the BBC, replacing many episodes that the BBC only held on black and white 16mm film:

From TVO, by April 1981:

• The Claws of Axos
• The Curse of Peladon
• The Mutants
• The Time Monster

Of note, the tape cassette of part 2 of The Curse of Peladon had a label on it that said HBO TIME-LIFE DISTRIBUTORS. EXPLORE BACKGROUND TO HBO and TL.

TOM BAKER

XXX stories, XX episodes:

.

Canada therefore bought GROUP ONE and GROUP TWO of the Tom Baker stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Transmission

ALL played on Saturday

- all but a couple of Bakers (Talons)

The Talons of Weng-Chiang did not air due to problems with the story's apparent racism towards the Chinese.

PETER DAVISON

XXX stories, XX episodes:

.

Canada therefore bought GROUP ONE and GROUP TWO of the Peter Davison stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Transmission

ALL played on Saturday

COLIN BAKER

.

Canada therefore bought GROUP ONE and GROUP TWO of the Colin Baker stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Transmission

ALL played on Saturday

- all Davison and C Baker

Reported in CT July 1987, the new Canadian distributor of DW is Cinar Films, who operate from Toronto and Montreal, and who specialise in comedy and drama.

In August 1989, after 15 years, TVO dropped Doctor Who...

SYLVESTER McCOY

XXX stories, XX episodes:

.

Canada therefore bought GROUP ONE and GROUP TWO of the Sylvester McCoy stories.

The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

From mid 1987, the new distributor of Doctor Who in Canada is Cinar Films, who operate from Toronto and Montreal, who specialise in comedy and drama.

Transmission

S24: 9 Jan 89 to 10 April 1989; Sat with a repeat on Thurs

Screened season 25 from September 1989, Sundays, at 7.30pm, with old repeats weekdays 5.30pm (Enlight 34)

ALL played on Saturday

See Handbook (Telos) for McCoy detail.

TVO loses rights in July 1989

Contract expires in August 1989. So ended a 13 year relationship between TVO and the good Doctor.

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper Globe and Mail from Toronto.

YTV (1989-1994)

The first Canadian cable network to air Doctor Who was YTV which, from 1989 to the mid-1990s, aired all existing episodes of the series up to Season 26 in a weekday afternoon timeslot. The final two Sylvester McCoy seasons were aired in a separate evening time slot.

Transmission

YOUTH TELEVISION (YTV)

Screened season 25 from September 1989, Sundays, at 7.30pm, with old repeats weekdays 5.30pm (Enlight 34)

See Handbook (Telos) for McCoy detail.

S25: 3 Sep 89 7pm, Sunday - or 7.30pm???? - Happiness Patrol first to 10 Oct (7H ep 4 in error for 7J ep 4), so was 15 eps in run

S26: 1990, Sat 5.30pm - not in correct story order

Sep 1989 to Aug 1994, all existing complete stories WH to SM, with ads, at varying times

Old repeats weekdays 5.30pm - per Enlightenment 34. See also Enlight 39 for letter from YTV. The first Canadian cable network to air Doctor Who

was YTV which, from 1989 to the mid-1990s, aired all existing episodes of the series up to Season 26 in a weekday afternoon timeslot. The final two Sylvester McCoy seasons were aired in a separate evening time slot.

TV listings

TV listings have been obtained from the newspaper Globe and Mail from Toronto.

SPACE (1997-)

PATRICK TROUGHTON

The original Hartnell and Troughton-era episodes aired daily on the Canadian science-fiction channel Space following the channel's launch in late 1997; however the black and white episodes did not attract the hoped for viewership and were dropped after a year.

Novelisations

The Target novelisations were widely available in Canada – the back covers of the books had a prvc eof XXX. However, from XXX Canada disappeared from the back prces, until XXX, whne XXXXX.

Fandom

DWIN commenced in 1980

LINK TO WEBSITE

Canada in Doctor Who

Goodness – where does one start?!

• Sydney Newman
• Actor Robin Phillips (Altos; The Keys of Marinus)
• Actor Robert Reilly (General Cutler; The Tenth Planet)
• Ottowa The Seeds of Death
• The wheat plains of Canada The Enemy of the World
• Al Quonquin The Ambassadors of Death
• Ottawa The Claws of Axos
• Actor Garrick Hagon (Ky; The Mutants)
• New Montreal Frontier in Space
• UK Habitat of the Canadian Goose The Trial of a Time Lord
• Actor Robert Jezek (Sgt Zbrigniev; Battlefield)
• The 1997 TV Movie TVM was filmed in Vancouver

Links

• Main Page
• Broadcasts around the World
• Articles & Analysis
• BBC Records
• Doctors
  • William Hartnell stories
  • Patrick Troughton stories
  • Jon Pertwee stories
  • Tom Baker stories
  • Peter Davison stories
  • Colin Baker stories
  • Sylvester McCoy stories