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Post by John Wall on Feb 22, 2018 21:34:27 GMT
TIE only had one "hub", and it was in London. There is zero evidence they had another, even in New York which was their second main distribution office. If they did have one in Africa, it wouldnt still be in operation. Who is paying the rent / lease / rates / insurance on the premises? Who is paying the electricity bill? What about staff wages? It depends how one defines 'hub'. I think of it not as a designated office or warehouse in an foreign country, but more like a collection point in a certain region so that films are easier to deliver/recall (primarily to save on shipping costs, but also to ensure that the BBC et al know the precise location of any film prints overseas). This could take the form of one of the broadcasting stations, for example.
Suppose Gibraltar was a 'hub' for one set of film prints, as the shipping map displayed on GallifreyBase indicates this as being a feasible sea route from Britain. This hub would be the first to receive say 'Marco Polo' in the bicycling chain before passing it on to countries such as Nigeria (by sea), then Ghana (by land), then Sierra Leone (by land), before returning it to Gibraltar (by sea) who then either hold on the prints for further redistribution elsewhere or sends them back to Britain. It wouldn't need a proper warehouse or office or anything, just somewhere to keep hold of the prints for a temporary period of time.
I think it’s important to remember that it wasn’t just Dr Who that was being sold around the world - there were hundreds if not thousands of prints being moved around. Also remember that some stations were paying as little as £10 or not much more - which, even in the 60s, wasn’t very much. These stations needed to get as much as possible for their money and Auntie wanted to get as much spent on programmes as possible, not on storage facilities, etc. There would have been a massive card index. It’s very simple, you have one card for each set of prints. You sell a story to Timbukthree and head for the cards. Some stories only had a few prints so it doesn’t take long. You need to find somewhere where the rights have expired and is (hopefully) reasonably close to Timbukthree. There are probably maps on the wall showing shipping routes, etc and a pile of shipping timetables. Having found the nearest/cheapest prints you then cable or Telex that broadcaster and tell them to send the prints to Timbukthree. You then update the card to say that the prints were sent to Timbukthree. When a set of prints is destroyed you destroy the card. If there are no prints left and the story is still available you order a new set if it’s sold.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 22, 2018 23:16:52 GMT
It was determined at one point that TIE, Ltd. had some sort of office or facility in Ethiopia.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 22, 2018 23:29:24 GMT
It was determined at one point that TIE, Ltd. had some sort of office or facility in Ethiopia. That’s easy:-) The Ark of the Covenant is supposedly in Ethiopia - Philip Morris is auditioning for the part of Indiana Jones!
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 23, 2018 0:01:55 GMT
None of the major film distributors operated anything remotely like the model that some are suggesting was how TIE operatzed. It didn't happen that way. There were no central collection / storage points.
The TV stations themselves acted as temporary storage sites. There was no need for an intermediary.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 23, 2018 0:08:21 GMT
None of the major film distributors operated anything remotely like the model that some are suggesting was how TIE operatzed. It didn't happen that way. There were no central collection / storage points. The TV stations themselves acted as temporary storage sites. There was no need for an intermediary. I recall that there is some documentation of stations being instructed to send prints to others.
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 23, 2018 0:23:33 GMT
None of the major film distributors operated anything remotely like the model that some are suggesting was how TIE operatzed. It didn't happen that way. There were no central collection / storage points. The TV stations themselves acted as temporary storage sites. There was no need for an intermediary. I recall that there is some documentation of stations being instructed to send prints to others. Oh sure, but those instructions came months or even years later. The stations held onto them until those instructions came. They didn't send them to a secondary body.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 23, 2018 0:29:39 GMT
I recall that there is some documentation of stations being instructed to send prints to others. Oh sure, but those instructions came months or even years later. The stations held onto them until those instructions came. They didn't send them to a secondary body. If you’re not holding too many reels there isn’t a problem.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 23, 2018 1:26:19 GMT
It was determined at one point that TIE, Ltd. had some sort of office or facility in Ethiopia. That’s easy:-) The Ark of the Covenant is supposedly in Ethiopia - Philip Morris is auditioning for the part of Indiana Jones! Television International Enterprises, Ltd. c/o The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion The Chapel of the Tablet Aksum, Ethiopia It will be difficult to do a proper search of the place unfortunately!
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 23, 2018 3:04:45 GMT
None of the major film distributors operated anything remotely like the model that some are suggesting was how TIE operatzed. It didn't happen that way. There were no central collection / storage points. The TV stations themselves acted as temporary storage sites. There was no need for an intermediary. We can be sure that Phil Morris and TIEA have looked into what films were at all TV stations that functioned as storage sites of that sort, I'm sure.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 23, 2018 3:31:43 GMT
I recall that there is some documentation of stations being instructed to send prints to others. Oh sure, but those instructions came months or even years later. The stations held onto them until those instructions came. They didn't send them to a secondary body. Perhaps at the very last station, if further instructions were being awaited but no instructions ever came, some films may have just remained where they were, gathering dust, and just were forgotten.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 23, 2018 9:19:49 GMT
Oh sure, but those instructions came months or even years later. The stations held onto them until those instructions came. They didn't send them to a secondary body. Perhaps at the very last station, if further instructions were being awaited but no instructions ever came, some films may have just remained where they were, gathering dust, and just were forgotten. Enemy and Web....
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Post by Chris Wilkinson on Feb 23, 2018 12:12:22 GMT
Oh sure, but those instructions came months or even years later. The stations held onto them until those instructions came. They didn't send them to a secondary body. Perhaps at the very last station, if further instructions were being awaited but no instructions ever came, some films may have just remained where they were, gathering dust, and just were forgotten. I disagree. I think the prints that have been recovered from overseas are ones that were, at the time of recall, temporarily misplaced at another broadcasting station within the vicinity. It's not unlikely that this is true on a local level within a specific country as broadcast dates were sometimes pre-empted with episodes having never turned up on time, and it has even been suggested that some prints performed backflips between entire countries, such as Hong Kong and Singapore or Nigeria and Ghana, within the broadcast rights period.
The BBC were very hot on intellectual property rights in the 1950s/60s - they would know exactly where the prints were both in terms of country and broadcasting station, or else how would they be able to give the order to move them on to a different station? I find it almost impossible to believe that they'd just allow prints to linger in foreign countries having been forgotten. The BBC would probably have instructed them to return the prints once they'd been located, but this instruction was either forgotten or was not carried out in the first place - hence saving the prints.
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Post by Richard Marple on Feb 23, 2018 14:11:19 GMT
With the Enemy of The World & WOF prints it seems there was a communication breakdown between Lagos & Jos concerning returning the reels.
I presume the BBC just contacted the HQ in Lagos to return the prints held there & a the message didn't go any further.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 23, 2018 14:35:35 GMT
Perhaps at the very last station, if further instructions were being awaited but no instructions ever came, some films may have just remained where they were, gathering dust, and just were forgotten. I disagree. I think the prints that have been recovered from overseas are ones that were, at the time of recall, temporarily misplaced at another broadcasting station within the vicinity. It's not unlikely that this is true on a local level within a specific country as broadcast dates were sometimes pre-empted with episodes having never turned up on time, and it has even been suggested that some prints performed backflips between entire countries, such as Hong Kong and Singapore or Nigeria and Ghana, within the broadcast rights period.
The BBC were very hot on intellectual property rights in the 1950s/60s - they would know exactly where the prints were both in terms of country and broadcasting station, or else how would they be able to give the order to move them on to a different station? I find it almost impossible to believe that they'd just allow prints to linger in foreign countries having been forgotten. The BBC would probably have instructed them to return the prints once they'd been located, but this instruction was either forgotten or was not carried out in the first place - hence saving the prints.
There were lots of prints of lots of shows in lots of places. Someone in London sends a cable or Telex to Timbukthree telling them to destroy prints on a Friday afternoon and what happens? It gets put on one side until Monday and then forgotten. We know that in some cases Auntie instructed foreign stations to destroy prints, but in other cases they had them sent back to London for destruction. Why would a pile of prints - probably a tea chest full - be sent from Australia to London to be destroyed ? We don’t know, but it happened - and Evil 2 escaped. In the late 70s/early 80s Ian Levine, et al started looking for missing shows - lots of colour Pertwees were found. A lot comes down to low grade and lowly paid people doing mindless, boring jobs.
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Post by Robert Lia on Feb 23, 2018 22:53:01 GMT
its also possible that while some prints were to be destroyed localy and others were requested to be sent back to BBC Enterprises that the employees took the easy way out and simply sent all the film prints they had back instead of sorting out which ones the BBC wanted and which ones they did not want
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