BBC Sydney

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BBC ENTERPRISES LIMITED, SYDNEY

BBC Enterprises, Sydney offices, circa 1974

The BBC has many broadcast customers around the world. With an industry "Quota" to be met, the BBC's first priority was selling to other Commonwealth countries. With hundreds of Commonwealth (and non-Commonwealth) broadcasters all requiring product but operating in different time-zones across the globe, the BBC had to out-source some of its sales and distribution processes to those better-suited and capable of handling sales locally.

It therefore made sense for the BBC to have a presence elsewhere, other than just in London, where sales could continue to be made around the world while the London office was 'asleep'. The BBC therefore established offices in Toronto, Canada; and Sydney, Australia, to handle sales to countries in those areas.

The BBC also struck up a relationship with Time Life Films (later Time-Life Television) in the United States to handle distribution within the United States, Latin America (specifically in Central America and South America). Time Life's contract expired in March 1981; after that date the BBC's new partner and distributor was Lionheart Television International Inc, of which the BBC bought full ownership in early 1986. From the Lionheart offices in the US, the BBC sold copies of the US/NTSC tapes to other countries around the world.

During the mid-1960s, sales to some countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Middle East were facilitated by Television International Enterprises Ltd's subsidiary, TIE (Programmes) Limited.

While BBC Toronto dealt exclusively with the many networked and private broadcasters in Canada, BBC Sydney was directly responsible for selling BBC product to countries in South East Asia, specifically Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong (and possibly also Thailand, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Korea (South), Japan, and Bangladesh).

This page deals exclusively with what was known as "BBC Sydney".

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SYDNEY SALES

TV distributors including BBC Sydney and BBC London

BBC Sydney address, circa 1990

The BBC's office in Sydney was located at several different locations over the years.

In the 1960s, the BBC was at 177 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (one block away from the ABC's own headquarters) until 1974, when it relocated to the Westfield Towers at 100 William Street. In the 1990s, it was based next door at 80 William Street.

The basic sales process at the BBC in Sydney was this:

BBC Sydney would send sales literature (such as brochures, synopsis sheets) promoting the programmes (dramas, comedies, documentaries, plays, etc) they had on offer to existing and potential customers.

Customers would often want to preview a programme before they made a firm commitment to purchase, so BBC Sydney would send them "Audition Prints" (aka Viewing Prints) which they acquired from London. (See Australia Sales for more on this.)

Another source of "Audition Prints" was other foreign broadcasters, who would be instructed to send to another country a couple of the prints they had already aired.

Once a foreign broadcaster had committed to a purchase, BBC Sydney handled the contracts and other paperwork, and also assisted in arranging supply of the film prints and tapes. These copies either came from BBC in London, or were bicycled in from other broadcasters.

In the case of local sales, BBC Sydney would also liaise with the Australian Film Censorship Board (AFCB), who was responsible for viewing and classifying all television programming in Australia.

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AS EASY AS ABC

NZBC's letterhead, 1971

ABC's letterhead, circa 1978

Two of the BBC's biggest customers were in Australia and New Zealand. While Australia had many network and private TV stations operating across the country, New Zealand had - until 1989 - just one television company, the NZBC (later named TVNZ).

Of the Australian broadcasters, the non-commercial ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission / Corporation) was the single biggest purchaser of BBC programmes in the world. The ABC operated a base station in each of the eight states / territories, which meant that films had to be regularly transported across the country.

The BBC valued the ABC as a customer, and as such, the ABC often had first refusal to purchase all BBC material ahead of the other Australian networks. But this meant that the ABC paid a hefty price for this privilege, usually paying (in pre-decimal currency days) hundreds of pounds for each episode, whereas other countries – such as New Zealand – paid only a tenth of that.

The high prices paid by the ABC also contributed towards much of the needed revenue required to pay contributor royalties per union requirements (Actors' Equity, Musicians' Union, Writers' Guild), meaning Australia funded up front almost all the rights clearance fees needed to be paid by Commonwealth countries, which meant that other Commonwealth countries did not have to pay any further fees. (The single biggest draw-back to this arrangement was that should a programme or episode be rejected or not go to air (due to censorship ratings, for instance) another country could not afford to buy that programme or episode. This is why those Doctor Who stories that were not seen in Australia between 1966 and 1974 (such as Mission to the Unknown, The Daleks' Master Plan, Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Daemons, and The Green Death) were also not seen by any other Commonwealth country.)

The ABC did not commence colour broadcasts until March 1975. However, for at least two years in advance of this date, the ABC acquired colour copies of some programmes, which were placed into storage to await scheduling after colour was launched.

In some cases, these colour tape copies were the only ones in existence, since the colour tape masters held by Enterprises in London had already been wiped, since many of the countries that Enterprises in London dealt with were still broadcasting in black and white. (This is why the colour tapes of Frontier in Space were eventually recovered from Australia in the early 1980s.)

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FINAL DESTINATION

Tangle of old films at rubbish tip

After they had passed their "use-by-date", the films and tapes used by Australian broadcasters were usually destroyed or sent back to the original distributors. After contacting BBC in London for disposal instructions, BBC Sydney would either arrange to have the films destroyed locally (usually by incineration), or send them back to London, but only if Enterprises wanted them back for selling elsewhere.

However, a handful of ex-ABC films are known to have been bicycled elsewhere. A set of 17 William Hartnell episodes on 16mm film that had previously been used by the ABC (some of these films had been cut by the Australian censors) were sent to New Zealand in mid-1967; that run of stories spanned The Reign of Terror to The Rescue.

Ex-ABC prints from The Chase, The War Machines and The Faceless Ones that had been junked were acquired by a film collector circa 1970, and subsequently returned to the BBC in the 1980s.

A batch of ex-ABC Troughton stories sent back to BBC Enterprises in London (including The Dominators, which had been cut by the Australian censors), were recovered in the late 1970s. Two further ex-ABC prints, Galaxy 4 part three, and The Underwater Menace part two, were returned by a UK film collector in 2011.

All films acquired by the ABC were held at the Federal Film Library, before screening and returned to afterwards. It was at this facility that The Celestial Toymaker part four was recovered in 1984. (See the profile on that serial for more thoughts on the origin of that particular 'missing' print.)

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BBC WORLDWIDE

BBC Sydney is now part of BBC Worldwide, and their office is located in Macquarie Park, New South Wales.

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