Questiion about colonial sales

[Simon Smith]

Why were all the colonies/commonwealth countries bound by Australia's decisions?

As an example "The Daleks Master Plan" is the rarest serial, because Australia chose not to buy it. But what was the reason that Australia decided pretty much for everyone else? Did Australia foot the bill for all payments regarding music, unions etc? Or something else?

[Simeon Carter]

I believe it was because Australia nearly always payed the clearance cost for each story. For example The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) payed £575/0/0 per episode when they bought the first batch of stories (100,000BC, The Mutants and Inside The Spaceship). However, The New Zealand Broadcating Corporation (NZBC) only paid £50/0/0 per episode when they bought the serials shortly after.

ABC weren't always the first to buy episodes. When ABC didn't make a firm decision about buying the fifth batch of stories (The Space Museum, The Chase and The Time Meddler), BBC Enterprises decided , for the first time, to allow another country to purchase them before Australia. It was because of this that Radio & Television of Singapore (RTS) and the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) were both able to purchase these stories (alongside the fourth batch of stories (The Romans, The Web Planet and The Crusade)).

When in September 1966 ABC rejected Mission To The Unknown and The Daleks' Masterplan, BBC Enterprises decided to withdraw them from all future offers to other foreign broadcasters. It is believed that this action was taken because without the fees paid by Australia to cover the clearance cost it would be too expensive to try to sell to other countries.


I am not an expert in the slightest and I hope that if I have made any errors someone will correct me. I hope this helps answer your question. Most of this comes from DWM 444 and, if you haven't, I suggest reading Richard Molesworth's article in there.

[Jon Preddle]

Apr 9, 2012 10:56:12 GMT Simon Smith said:

Why were all the colonies/commonwealth countries bound by Australia's decisions?

As an example "The Daleks Master Plan" is the rarest serial, because Australia chose not to buy it. But what was the reason that Australia decided pretty much for everyone else? Did Australia foot the bill for all payments regarding music, unions etc? Or something else?

The clearance rights fee for the script writer and the composer was also called an "Area Payment". This fee wasn't paid on a country-by-county basis but on an area basis, and it was a one-off fee. Sometimes but very rarely this fee was paid under a "World Rights" contract, meaning that the one fee paid for ALL areas.

So, basically, the first country in Australasia, Latin America, Middle East and what was then called Middle Commonwealth (i.e. Africa and Caribbean) that bought each serial paid this fee, meaning that all subsequent countries didn't.

If Australia didn't buy a serial, and thus pay the Australasia Area Payment, then NZ, Hong Kong and Singapore tv stations couldn't afford to do so.

In the case of Master Plan, to correct what Simeon Carter said, that was unavailable not only because Australia didn't buy it, but also because it had been pulled from sale by the BBC due to an agreement with Nation, who was then trying to put together a spin-off series.

[John Wall]

This is fascinating stuff. So it looks like the Aussies were, effectively, subsidising the rest of the region - I bet they didn't give a 4X for that !

[Simeon Carter]

Thanks for the correction Jon. I forgot to mention about Nation's agreement which as well as affecting The Dalek's Masterplan stopped sales of The Power Of the Daleks which being the first Troughton story, reduced sales of future stories.

[Jon Preddle]

Apr 9, 2012 19:12:56 GMT Simeon Carter said:

Thanks for the correction Jon. I forgot to mention about Nation's agreement which as well as affecting The Dalek's Masterplan stopped sales of The Power Of the Daleks which being the first Troughton story, reduced sales of future stories.

Given that there were several countries to pick up the Troughtons starting at "The Highlanders", I don't think the unavailability of "Power..." had too much to do with reduced sales of his stories.

If New Zealand hadn't been behind with the series, I'm sure NZBC would have gone from "The Smugglers" straight into "The Highlanders" without worrying about not playing the two stories in between. Not screening "The War Games" didn't prevent them later buying "Spearhead from Space".

And look at what later happened with the Pertwees - lots of missing stories, but the programme buyers didn't really care about whether or not continuity was maintained. The BBC certainly continued to sell the series in its incomplete state.

If anything, I think the poor Troughton sales was down to more and more foreign stations switching to colour in the early to mid 1970s, which would have put them off buying any more black and white material.

[Simeon Carter]

Apr 9, 2012 20:29:06 GMT Jon Preddle said:

If anything, I think the poor Troughton sales was down to more and more foreign stations switching to colour in the early to mid 1970s, which would have put them off buying any more black and white material.

This is most probably true as there was certainly less of a market for black and white shows now licence payers where expecting colour but I still think that Power being missing contributed to the decrease in sales. Although continuity didn't generally matter to foreign broadcasters, I think the main actor changing for the first time may have been affected sales.

The key words here are really 'I think' . We all have different opinions. However I understand what you are saying and I would be happy to be proven wrong and to learn from someone who really knows what they're on about.

[Richard Bignell]

Jon has studied sales and sales patterns more than most, so I think it's fairly safe to say his summations are going to be fairly sound.

[John Wall]

I'm very impressed with Jon's knowledge

[Jon Preddle]

There have been a few other series in which a lead actor was replaced - such as The Lone Ranger, Bewitched (not to mention the Bond films!) - which didn't affect sales, so I doubt any change of Who actor would have even registered.

Zambia successfully jumped from "The Smugglers" to "The Highlanders" - of course there was a two year gap in between.

Gibraltar went from "The Time Meddler" to "The Mind Robber" - with a gap of five years betwixt. Then they showed some Pertwees, followed by some more Troughtons then the rest of the Pertwees!

Singapore went from Hartnell to Troughton to Pertwee to Hartnell to Troughton to Hartnell to Pertwee!

Three other countries that had previously aired season 1 and 2 Hartnells picked up the Troughtons with "The Highlanders".

Later, "Robot", complete with the Pertwee to Baker transition aired in dozens of countries that had never seen DW before, and no one minded.

So that proves that broadcasters weren't put off not being able to show the first regeneration.

The "failure" of the Troughtons was, I'd say, primarily due to economics and / or ratings.

[Simeon Carter]

Thanks for the clarification Jon. I think I'll listen to your knowledge as you are certainly the person to listen to. I seemed to have got my impression from Richard Molesworth article in DWM 444 but looking back at the article now I seemed to have missed the words; 'might be purely coincidental'. Thanks again and sorry for being a pain.

[Simon Smith]

Yes, thank you very much for the information about overseas sales. I certainly respect Jon Preddle's knowledge and research into sales, sales patterns, ratings etc. (just not his ideas about continuity and UNIT dating ). Seriously though, this does make a lot of stuff much clearer.