Australia TX 1976-1978
AUSTRALIAN TRANSMISSION HISTORY (Part Five) (1976-1978)
Block 9: PERTWEE / T BAKER ---- March 1976 to September 1976
| First Run | ZZZ----4A----4B----4C----4E? |
After a long eight month break with no holiday repeats, the series returned in 1976 with the final Jon Pertwee story, ZZZ, and the first three Tom Baker serials, which screened in production order, screening on different days of the week in each region, usually at 6.00pm. (Because of this late scheduling of his stories, Australia became the third country – after Netherlands and Hong Kong - to show the fourth Doctor.)
AUSTRALIAN DOCTOR WHO FAN CLUB
Following the publication in Australia of Target books' "The Making of Doctor Who" in 1976, a group of Australian fans discovered that a number of stories (such as Mission to the Unknown, The Daleks' Master Plan, Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Daemons and The Green Death) had never been aired on the ABC, and planned to stage a "Dalek Demo" protest outside the ABC's headquarters in downtown Sydney to force the ABC to show the "banned" stories.
By this time the ABC had been receiving a number of complaints from viewers about the "endless" repeats, and decided to pull the series from the schedules early, despite having already purchased the next two serials, 4E and 4D, and had already had a further two, 4F and 4H, classified by the censors.
On learning of the ABC's decision to drop the series, the fans changed the purpose of their "Dalek Demo" from getting the "banned" stories shown to "Save Doctor Who" - and convince the ABC to reverse its decision to drop the series.
The group with its own home-built Dalek assembled outside the ABC's Broadcast House on Elizabeth Street on 24 August 1976. The ABC relented, and scheduled the remaining purchased Tom Baker serials for the following year. It was as a direct result of the successful demonstration that the first Australian Doctor Who Fan Club was formally established.
- HOBART: began its run on Sundays, commencing with ZZZ on 7 March 1976. It was the first network to screen Tom Baker, on 18 April. It concluded the run on 20 June 1976, with 4C.
- SYDNEY: also started ZZZ on Sunday, 7 March 1976, ending 11 April 1976. Tom Baker debuted in New South Wales two weeks later, on Friday, 23 April 1976, and the run ended on 25 June 1976.
- PERTH: saw Jon Pertwee bow out from Friday, 12 March to 16 April 1975. Tom Baker arrived a week later, from 23 April. Newspaper listings for northern Western Australia regional stations indicate that the run ended with 4E, making this State the first to screen the Dalek serial.
- BRISBANE: saw the final third Doctor story and the first of the new Doctor episodes on a daily basis, rather than weekly, Monday through Thursdays, from Monday, 19 April to Tuesday, 4 May 1976, before switching to weekly on Saturdays, from 15 May 1976 to 19 June 1976.
- MELBOURNE: saw the final Jon Pertwee serial on Fridays, from 28 May 1976 to 2 July 1976. After an eight week break, the Tom Baker era commenced, from Sunday, 29 August 1976, and this came to an end on 31 October 1976.
- ADELAIDE: had no screenings of Doctor Who at all during 1976. It wasn't until Sunday, 27 March 1977, that ADELAIDE caught up with the rest of the country by airing this Block of new episodes, starting with ZZZ, weekly on Sundays, through to 4C part four on 10 July 1977. Because they were lagging behind, ADELAIDE was able to also schedule the next Block of episodes to follow on without interruption…
- It is possible that part 4 of 4C may not have aired in all (or only in some?) regions, having been replaced by coverage of cricket.
- MINING TOWNS: These remote areas in Western Australia were still relying on their regular shipments of video-taped programming from PERTH. But starting from 28 July 1976, the Tom Price and Paraburdoo communities began to receive programmes in colour for the first time – although most residents still had monochrome TV sets. The first episodes of Doctor Who they would have seen in colour would be from the tail end of Tom Baker's first series.
Block 10: T BAKER ---- April 1977 to November 1977
| First Run | 4E----4D |
| Repeats | UUU----XXX----YYY----ZZZ |
The remaining two season 12 serials that had been purchased before the ABC dropped the series were scheduled from April 1977, screening on Sundays in all regions, at 4.40pm or 5.35pm.
- MELBOURNE: was first to air 4E, from Sunday, 20 March 1977 and 4D, from 8 May 1977. The short ten week run concluded on 29 May 1977.
- HOBART: saw these ten episodes from 3 April 1977 to 5 June 1977.
- PERTH: aired 4D at some stage between August 1976 and June 1977; the exact airdates for this serial have not been found.
- BRISBANE: From 24 April 1977 to 5 June 1977, followed by repeats of UUU through to YYY on a weekly basis (albeit with some episodes pre-empted), to 30 October 1977. There were no listings to indicate that ZZZ was repeated in BRISBANE. However on 7 December 1977, a generic listing of programming "For the Juniors", which ran for five hours (from 1.30 to 6.30pm), is given as a replacement for cancelled cricket on that date – there is a remote possibility that ZZZ was shown as a compilation during this slot.
- SYDNEY: saw the run from 1 May 1977 to 3 July 1977.
- ADELAIDE: was able to screen these two stories straight after the previous Block, from 17 July 1977 until 25 September 1977.
Of note, the repeats of these last few Pertwee episodes was the final time that Doctor Who aired on a weekly basis only; from 1977 until 1987, the series would always only air on weekdays.
Block 11: T BAKER (PERTWEE) ---- February 1978 to November 1978
| First Run | 4F----4H----4G----4J----4M----4L----4N----4Q----4R----4S----TTT----4K |
| Repeats | 4A----4B----AAA----KKK----PPP----RRR----UUU----XXX----YYY----ZZZ----4A----4B----4C----4E----4D----4F----4G----4H----4J----4L----4M----4N----4Q----4R----4S |
In early 1978, a change of policy within the ABC saw the decision to not purchase any more Doctor Who overturned; the station purchased the remaining season 13 serials plus season 14, and scheduled them as one Block.
Two serials, 4K and 4P, had "A" classifications, and therefore did not screen. However, by the time the censors' decision had been disclosed to the ABC in March 1978, the station had already notified some newspapers and listings publications that 4K was screening (as seen in this example here at right from a Perth TV magazine); in most regions 4M was substituted in place of 4K.
The run of new Tom Baker stories was followed by a limited run of Jon Pertwee serials, most of which would be broadcast in colour for the first time. AAA was sourced as a colour 16mm film print, whereas the others were on Video Tape. Only a handful still existed in their entirety as PAL colour video tapes. (It is thought that some of these colour tapes were sourced from the Middle East, possibly United Arab Emirates.) (According to the BBC in London, QQQ only existed in black and white, so the serial was being offered as such; neither the BBC nor the ABC was aware that the PAL colour tapes that had been supplied to the ABC in 1973 were still held at their Film / Video Tape library!)
The 29 minute extended version of PPP part two with the alternative arrangement of the theme tune aired for the first time during this run. (The same extended episode had already been seen in New Zealand in 1975, and was used again for the 1979, 1983 and 1986 Australian repeats, but for the 2004 showing, this was the shorter standard BBC version.)
The ABC sought to have TTT reclassified to enable them to air one further story in colour; tapes were acquired from the BBC, and it was reassessed and given a "G" rating (with one small cut made to part 3), which overrode the original "A" rating that had prevented it from screening in 1973.
NEW EPISODES
- PERTH, SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, ADELAIDE and HOBART: for the first time ever, all regions commenced the new episodes simultaneously from Tuesday, 7 February 1978, at 6.30pm, starting with 4F, screening four nights a week.
- BRISBANE, however, only aired three times a week, skipping the Friday episodes, putting Queensland out of sync with the rest of the country from day one.
- MELBOURNE also fell out of step by one day due to no episode airing 27 March 1978.
- Some regional newspapers announced that 4K would screen the week after 4J, but the "A" rated serial was replaced with 4M, which was brought forward in story order.
- With the screenings now out of sync, and the tapes of the next few serials not received or cleared in time by the censors, the ABC scheduled repeats of 4A and 4B between 4L and 4N in March 1978.
- On the night of Tuesday, 4 April 1978, PERTH was hit by a cyclone (the largest natural disaster to affect the city); half of the city was blacked out. As a result of this, part 1 of 4N was repeated the following night, ahead of part 2. It appears that the following day part 2 was itself repeated ahead of part 3. Part 4, however, aired on its own on the Friday; it wasn't preceded by a repeat of part 3.
- Some newspapers advertised 4P to follow 4N, but the "A" rated serial was usually replaced with 4Q.
REPEATS
- After 4S 6, all regions screened repeats of AAA, KKK, PPP, and RRR now in COLOUR for the first time! The extended version of PPP 2 with alternative title music also aired for the first time.
- The next story to air wasn't a repeat – this was TTT, which had previously been given an "A" classified serial but had been resubmitted for review was granted a "G"; this debuted in PERTH on 29 May 1978, with the other networks screening the "new" serial the following day.
- After this, the re-run of colour Pertwees continued, followed by a complete run of the Tom Bakers, from 4A again through to 4S, with 4M screening in its correct position, but with 4G and 4H screening this time in production order.
- The run concluded with 4S on Tuesday, 10 October 1978 in PERTH; on 11 October 1978 in SYDNEY; 12 October 1978 in HOBART; 8 November in ADELAIDE; and prematurely with 4R part four on 28 November 1978 in BRISBANE. (Although, as far as we can determine, 4S was not repeated in BRISBANE.)
MORE NEW EPISODES – SORT OF…
- ADELAIDE: South Australians had the unique privilege of being the first to see the 60 minute edited compilation of 4K on Wednesday, 11 October 1978, at 8.30pm. (It would not screen in the other regions until January 1980…)
- CONTINUED: 1979-1982
| Airdates in Australia |
| 1965-66 | 1966-67 | 1967-71 | 1971-75 | 1976-78 | 1979-82 | 1983-85 | 1985-90 | 1991-2002 | 2003-(2020s)
Key: BOLD = first airing | ITALICS = repeat |
| Table of Repeats | ABC's Regional Stations |
