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Post by Robert Lia on Apr 16, 2014 2:25:55 GMT
It might have been intersting to see what might have happened if Dr, Who was broadcast nationwide starting in 1972 on PBS
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Post by Jeff Haynes on Apr 16, 2014 23:00:45 GMT
I've often wondered why that didn't happen. I grew up in Chicago, and I'm telling you it would have been great as a Friday - Saturday late night program. Back then there were the 3 networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, that were nationwide, then there were the local PBS stations and your local commercial station, ours was WGN, and later WTTW, on UHF. WGN showed locally produced kid shows, news, and talk shows in the day, and mostly syndicated reruns at night, and movies late night. Dr Who would have taken off like a rocket. Oh well, what might have been. Remember that there was no PBS in the US until 1970. Who the heck would have purchased Doctor Who in the 1960s? Independent stations were scattered all over the country - many on a shoestring budget that looks like Al Yankovic's characters' shows in "UHF". PBS stations had very limited budgets for many years. 1973 or so would have been the earliest that Doctor Who could realistically have been on in the US. Even so, there was such a bias in the American media at the time, so not only would the PBS stations have been reluctant to buy B&W episodes, but BBC would have been reluctant to sell B&W episodes. It's kind of a shame because I was eating up science fiction at the time - even "Man from Atlantis" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.". I was the first kid in my class to get a color TV and that wasn't until 1965. Color was not a big issue until the later 60's. WGN was a huge station and showed lot's of syndicated programs, B&W Dr Who would have been a perfect fit
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Post by Robert Lia on Apr 17, 2014 0:59:42 GMT
I lived in New York City until February 1971 when I moved to Los Angeles and black and white Doctor Who episodes would have fit right in with the programing being aired by independent stations WNEW, WOR and WPIX, same in Los Angeles with KTLA, KHJ, KTTV, KCOP and especially KBSC-TV
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Post by Alex Dering on Apr 17, 2014 1:12:58 GMT
As a child in the 1970s, I would watch Ch. 56 (in Boston) on Saturdays when they aired "Creature Double-Feature." It was a widely syndicated package of B&W horror/sci fi films (BOTH of the giant tarantula movies), the color vampire movies from Hammer, and color AND B&W Japanese monster movies and sci fi. It was the best thing in the whole wide world. I suspect a LOT of stations (especially small ones) would have offered B&W anything at least until about 1976. In 1976, America had its bicentennial. Most people had color TVs by then, but the whole red, white and blue jammed down your eyes 24/7 reached its apex then, and the holdouts finally forked out for color
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Post by Robert Lia on Apr 17, 2014 3:04:21 GMT
THis was also the case in Los Angeles and one odsf the reapons why KCET did not pick up the Tom Baker episdoes until December 1983. Lyoenheart wanted so much simply due to the size of the market that it caused the TV staion to walk away. Tom had become so popular that the distributor priced them selves out of certain markets. KCET did broadcast other BBC shows at the time though.
Now KCET did air Jon Pertwe from July 75 till December 77 so it was defiantly affordable back them.
And yes we had the Creature Features tyype movies and shows from Japan running along side Star Trek, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in the early 70's and I am sure they were not cheap to air either. So depending how the BBC would have priced black and wite kinoscopes in the late 60's to early mid 70's woud have been a factor. But as the color episodes did sell in some markets no doubt there would have been some interest by idependant station or UHF stations depending on the price of course
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Post by Jeff Haynes on Apr 17, 2014 19:05:55 GMT
In the USA TV shows are shown over and over again forever. There are shows like Dick Van Dyke, older than Dr Who, The Honeymooners from the 50's, the Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, and hundreds more that have NEVER BEEN OFF THE AIR since they were first broadcasted. The concept that a hit show would be shown once or twice and then never seem again is foreign to us.
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Post by Richard Marple on Apr 17, 2014 19:22:19 GMT
Syndicatation seemed to take off quite early, I Love Lucy was one of the first, even before the last ones were networked.
I've heard of some flop / short run shows being unaired for years, even with a cult following. Moonlighting is one that comes to mind.
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Post by Robert Lia on Apr 17, 2014 22:34:27 GMT
There are some shows that are continually run I love Lucy is still seen in KTTV in Los Angeles and has been as long as I can remember. many other shows get an extended life due to the sheer number of cable TV stations. How ever when you look at the sheer number of TV shows that were produced in the 50's and 60's the vast majority have been forgotten. . .
Fortunately whist forgotten by broadcast stations they are remembered by there studios and many are available on DVD
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Post by Alex B on Apr 18, 2014 7:32:55 GMT
Ah, if only Australia and/or New Zealand had been lazy and just left their episodes in storage. The NZ films were mostly dumped c.1973 when the NZBC film store moved locations. If the move hadn't happened, the films might possibly have survived into the 80s.
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Post by lousingh on Apr 23, 2014 13:31:50 GMT
As a child in the 1970s, I would watch Ch. 56 (in Boston) on Saturdays when they aired "Creature Double-Feature." It was a widely syndicated package of B&W horror/sci fi films (BOTH of the giant tarantula movies), the color vampire movies from Hammer, and color AND B&W Japanese monster movies and sci fi. It was the best thing in the whole wide world. I suspect a LOT of stations (especially small ones) would have offered B&W anything at least until about 1976. In 1976, America had its bicentennial. Most people had color TVs by then, but the whole red, white and blue jammed down your eyes 24/7 reached its apex then, and the holdouts finally forked out for color I think that the biggest drawback would have been expense. BBC shows were not cheap, especially having to pay high clearance fees. This would have deterred most stations from broadcasting Who. This was even the case in the 1980's on small market PBS stations. And Rob's message... In 1980, I spoke with the people at Channel 17 in Buffalo about the cost of Doctor Who. In 1973, the prices were apparently astronomical. By 1977, the BBC had lowered the price considerably. But then they saw how much money places like Buffalo, Chicago, etc. were making off the show and then the prices shot up again. IMHO, it is reasonable to infer that cost was part of the issue for both PBS and independent stations. Also, the attitude in the US towards British TV is best summed up by this exchange from "The Nanny": Niles: Yes, let's try to capture that elusive letter "r". Fran: What? Max: Your accent. It's so (beat) odd. Niles: Inescapable. Fran: I don't see an "r" coming out of your mouths. Max: That's because we're British. Niles: Yes, we can say anything we like and people think it's Shakespeare. (Max and Niles look at each other and chuckle smugly.) So most programmers would have seen, "Doctor Who" and "science fiction" and assumed it was a high-brow, cutting-edge medical show. That's why my parents were OK with me watching it initially. Never mind that "The Avengers" and "The Prisoner" had already been on American TV. Which leads me to: A disincentive for non-PBS stations to buy Doctor Who would have been the wildly varying episode lengths (in this sphere, 23-25 minutes is "wildly varying") and lack of commercial breaks. Editing these was done locally and was a cost, so you would have also had that problem as well.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Apr 23, 2014 23:12:00 GMT
Please don't ever quote from 'The Nanny' again. It just makes us ALL less intelligient.
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Post by lousingh on Apr 27, 2014 21:23:44 GMT
Please don't ever quote from 'The Nanny' again. It just makes us ALL less intelligent. Sorry, bubeleh. One other anti-Who point for broadcasters was the serial format. In the US, the only serials were largely in daytime soap operas, which had a horrendous reputation. They would have preferred uniform length stories in the "omnibus" format that dominated US sales in the 1980's. Unfortunately, that also meant that the stories were no longer very uniform in length, which would force most stations to broadcast Doctor Who at night. But then the targetted age group is fast asleep by then...
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Post by Brad Phipps on Apr 28, 2014 20:56:20 GMT
Ah, if only Australia and/or New Zealand had been lazy and just left their episodes in storage. Considering I worked in the building that housed the actual physical vault where films were stored in Dunedin before transmission I just wish I was born 30 years earlier... though knowing my luck it would likely have fallen to me to junk them. Least I could've watched them!
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Post by Neil Lambess on Apr 29, 2014 8:04:16 GMT
Ah, if only Australia and/or New Zealand had been lazy and just left their episodes in storage. The NZ films were mostly dumped c.1973 when the NZBC film store moved locations. If the move hadn't happened, the films might possibly have survived into the 80s. i was told by a TVNZ employee that some were still in storage at avalon in 76-77..........(but only historicals ) ."the one about scotmen and pirates " and some episodes of Marco Polo were specifically mentioned , but in saying that , if he was just going by the labels on the cans he may have been unaware of the mislabelled contents as was the case when Grahame Howard found the cans for moonbase 3 and Marco
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Post by Neil Lambess on Apr 29, 2014 8:28:58 GMT
Only one I can think of was the research in New Zealand about Macra Terror. That interested me, but its a difficult research as it relies on memories. I hope it's going well. Im still looking ! (but the excellent research done by David (damn ive forgotten his surname but he posted it all on here ) uncovered several other classmates of mine who remembered seeing it at school and successfully identified the moster as the Macra when shown photos of various Who Mosnters.... Jon P has a theory it was shown at the school then returned to NZBC and destroyed... (which may be true ) but its interesting to note that the "destroyed" entry in the TVNZ logs is written in a completely aytpical handwriting and position to the otherwise well kept ledger . Years before either of us had seen the logs , id been told by an TVNZ employee that stuff did go walkies from storage via various methods, tip-offs to collectors , etc etc (as has been well documented with the Lion ) and one of the methods was just to swap the contents of the cans , and destroy something else entirely , or just to remove it and list it as "destroyed" in the logs.... the destruction entry for Macra is late 1974 , i think "after" the TVNZ/NZBC move to the new Avalon studios, and the mass dumpings (i think ? ) the same source told me that there was a film collector collector in the Wairarapa who was heavilly into SF shows...... and David found many people during his research who "knew" of the same collector , but the frustrating part is nobody can recall his name....! its possible that as the 'Lion" was in storage on a wairarapa farm for a film collector who never returned to collect his stuff , that it "may" have been part of this elusive persons collection ( the Lion eventually ended up in the collection of Larry Dugan in the 80s who sold it many years later at a film fair in Napier in 1998 ....)
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