Timeline for Pertwee erasings

[ianphillips]

The Destruction of Time has a timeline listing when the BBC Master copies of the 60s episodes were wiped, but does anyone have a timeline or list of when the Pertwee master tapes/Tom Baker master tapes (if there were any wiped Bakers) were erased?

[Jon Preddle]

The original PAL tapes for seasons 7,8 and 9 all existed by late 1972, because they were all converted into NTSC for the sale to the US, where the Pertwees started screening in late August of that same year.

When New Zealand was offered the PAL colour Pertwees in late 1974, only the handful of complete stories from seasons 9, 10 and 11 (the ones that exist today) were available. No complete PAL colour stories from seasons 7 or 8 existed by the end of 1974.

So although no firm dates exist for when it happened, those 'missing' PAL Pertwees were wiped over a period of time between late 1972 and late 1974.

[bevanthomas]

Interesting... I often wondered why we got so few. Just think how things might have been had we changed to colour a bit earlier?

Or... even more interestingly, imagine if we had waited a few years to change over to colour broadcasts? We might be comparing our memories of watching the Season Six Troughtons in the mid-seventies...

Thanks, Jon.

[Richard Marple]

It's interesting that both New Zealand & Australia were slow to convert to colour.

[Jon Preddle]

I wouldn't say slow. New Zealand commenced colour transmissions in October 1973, although only a few hours a day, and in Auckland only. During 1974, colour transmissions increased in terms of hours and range, with a big push to get more regional coverage in time for when NZ hosted the Commonwealth Games in 74. We still had a mix of b/w and colour during 73,74 and first half of 75. In early 75 we saw Spearhead and Silurians in b/w, but from June 75, all programmes were in colour, and we saw the handful of remaining colour Pertwees.

As Bevan notes above, I think the reason why we never saw any of Troughton's last series, season 6 (which would have aired in 1972/73 here) was that the TV station had a big stock pile of unaired b/w programmes it wanted to use up before the launch of colour, and they didn't want to buy any more b/w, which included Troughton's final run of 44 eps, which would have been almost a full year's worth of b/w to use up. So better not to buy it!

[Richard Marple]

OK I see, quite a few Western European countries had started colour services by 1970.

I can understand Australia taking longer due to the logistics of setting up a new network over long distances.

[Robert Lia]

IT would be interesting to know the junking schedule for the Jon Pertwee episode's that were sold to Time Life in the 70's as far as I know only the copies they sold to TV stations were recovered but no NTSC Master 2 inch quads from that period