Broadcasting

Tuesday, 28 November 2000 - Reported by Marcus

Compiled by:
Shaun Lyon with Mark Phippen

National Dr. Who Night: Several US PBS stations are showing a "National Doctor Who Night" broadcast (the same episodes at the same time), including stations in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Maryland, Indiana, Washington State and Colorado. Sylvester McCoy was the evening's host for the taping. (The Pennsylania airing on WQED, where it was taped, already occurred in late October.) Showings include WCET Cincinnati OH (November 18), KBTC/KCKA/K65BU Tacoma WA (December 2), MPT Maryland (December 2), NHPTV New Hampshire (December 10), iPTV Iowa (March 2001), and WYIN Gary IN and KBDI/K32EO Denver/Colorado Springs CO (date unknown). For more specific information, read the This Week in Doctor Who column. Northern Ireland Showings at Queen's Film Theatre: Several Doctor Who stories are being shown on Saturday afternoons in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the run up to Christmas at the Queen's Film Theatre. These include "The Five Doctors," "The Daemons," "The Web of Fear" and 4 mystery episodes, "Attack of the Cybermen" and "Destiny of the Daleks." For more information, visit the website athttp://www.qub.ac.uk/qft/latest.html. (Thanks to Stephen Law) Who Returns to Dallas: KERA 13 in Dallas, TX is going to air Doctor Who for the first time in years, starting Saturday, December 2nd. KERA will air the episode versions of the Jon Pertwee stories, beginning with Spearhead From Space. New Zealand Renewal: Prime TV in New Zealand is ordering 142 more episodes of the series , from The Time Monster through Image Of The Fendahl. This is certainly good news. One of the episodes will be episode 1 of Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, which has never aired before in New Zealand (likely to air early in 2001.) Canada Film Showing: Though the series no longer airs in Canada, SPACE wil be running the 1966 movie "Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.", an adaptation of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth starring Peter Cushing, on Saturday, November 25th at 2PM EST (3:30PM Newfoundland Time, 11AM PST). For one day at least, the Doctor will be back. BBC Canada?: In April 2000, the BBC and Alliance Atlantis productions submitted a bid to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch BBC Canada, a digital Cable network. The station was approved by the CRTC in late November. Doctor Who would theoretically be one possibility for broadcast on this new network, likely to be in operation in late 2001, as it is on BBC America. (Thanks to Benjamin Elliott and Jamie Howse) New Word on the TV Movie Rights in America: Some curious news about the rights to rebroadcast the Doctor Who 1996 TV movie with Paul McGann in America. Sources indicate that the US rights to the 1996 film are held by Studios USA (formerly Universal.) FOX's rights to the program apparently expired in May 2000 -- not the previously rumored New Year's eve 1999 expiration. The cost to purchase the rights to the program are, unfortunately, prohibitive for PBS stations (somewhere in the ball park of half a million dollars.) Studios USA, however, is owned by Barry Diller, who also owns the USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel, so it is possible that the movie could turn up on one of those two outlets. (Information courtesy Benjamin Elliott)

FILTER: - USA - Broadcasting