User:Jon Preddle
The PHILIPPINES is an archipelago of islands in Asia, to the south of Japan, and north of Australia.
Profile
| Country Number (39) | 1976 | SECOND WAVE |
| Region | Asia | |
| Television commenced | 1953 | |
| Colour System | 1966 | NTSC |
| Population | 1976 | 40,225,000 |
| TV Sets | 1976 | unknown |
| Language/s | English |
Television Stations / Channels
The Philippines began its television service in 1953. Television broadcasts were managed under the government's Telecommunications Control Bureau, which also regulated radio broadcasts. Each of the main islands has its own network of stations and programming, much as it is in the United States.
We have determined that Doctor Who screened (at least) on two of the islands: from Quezon City on Luzon (Channel 2) and Bacolod on Negros (Channel 4). (The series may well have aired on the other islands, but for which we don't have airdates.)
Language/s
The principal languages of the Philippines is Pilipino, English (spoken by 50 percent of the population), Spanish, plus numerous native languages and dialects. Television broadcasts were predominantly in English.
DOCTOR WHO IN THE PHILIPPINES
The Philippines was the 39th country to screen Doctor Who, and the sixth in Asia (see Selling Doctor Who).
BBC Records
The Seventies records a sale of "(2)" stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook identifies these as being LLL and NNN.
The Eighties - THE LOST CHAPTERS records a sale of "(13)" stories (by 10 February 1987). There is an overlap of two stories.
In DWM, the Philippines is identified in six story Archives: DDD, EEE, KKK, MMM, LLL, NNN.
Stories bought and broadcast
JON PERTWEE
13 stories, 72 episodes:
| BBB | Doctor Who and the Silurians | 7 |
| CCC | The Ambassadors of Death | 7 |
| DDD | Inferno | 7 |
| EEE | Terror of the Autons | 4 |
| FFF | The Mind of Evil | 6 |
| GGG | The Claws of Axos | 4 |
| HHH | Colony in Space | 6 |
| JJJ | The Daemons | 5 |
| KKK | Day of the Daleks | 4 |
| MMM | The Curse of Peladon | 4 |
| LLL | The Sea Devils | 6 |
| NNN | The Mutants | 6 |
| OOO | The Time Monster | 6 |
The Philippines therefore bought GROUPs A to C of the standard package of Jon Pertwee stories sold in the NTSC format.
The programme was supplied as NTSC colour video tapes with English soundtracks.
Origin of the Prints?
Although the Philippines is part of Asia, which is usually the jurisdiction of BBC Sydney, the fact that the broadcaster transmits in NTSC suggests that the transmission tapes may have been supplied by Time-Life Films in New York.
Transmission
JON PERTWEE
The series aired on a "regional" basis. We have located the airdates for two of the regional screenings.
QUEZON CITY (Channel 2)
The series commenced on Saturday, 6 March 1976, with a one-hour timeslot, 9.00 to 10.00pm, suggesting two episodes back to back.
From 1 April the series moved to Thursdays, at the earlier time of 8.00pm, still in one hour / two episode blocks.
From 20 August 1976, it was a shift to Fridays, but now with only a half hour slot, starting 10.00pm for two weeks, then from 9.30pm for the final three weeks.
There were no episodes on 29 April, 6 May, 1 July, 5 August and 12 August. (The TV listings also pre-empt the series in favour of The Donny and Marie Show on 22 July, but for the reasons noted below, it's possible this is a printing error.)
The last episode aired on 24 September 1976. Allowing for 15 April when TV listings were not printed, there were 40 episodes in this run. However there should be 42, which means that two episodes did air on one of the dates for which no episode is listed. (This would presumably one of the two empty dates in August.)
No episode titles were given, however (as noted in TV Listings below), the second to last serial to air appears to have been The Ambassadors of Death.
There is no clear record that Doctor Who aired on Channel 2 after this date.
BACOLOD (Channel 4)
Viewers on the island of Negros saw Doctor Who a week after the Quezon City broadcasts, on Saturday 13 March 1976, at 9.00pm; these were also two episodes back to back in a one hour timeslot. From the second week, the start time shifted to 8.05pm. As with Quezon City, there was a day change to Thursday with the fourth episode. 8.00pm was the new airtime.
These Channel 4 screenings duplicated those of Quezon City, in that whenever an episode was pre-empted on Channel 2, the same episode was pre-empted the following week on Channel 4, which suggests a sharing of the same set of video tapes between both channels.
There was a change to Fridays from 27 August 1976, with the timeslot given as 9.00 to 10.00pm. If that was the case, then this doubling-up of episodes gives us 48 episodes rather than 42. But if we assume the timeslot for these five Friday screenings was only half an hour (as it was on Channel 2) that leaves us one episode short of 42 episodes! It's possible that there was a double-up one of these Fridays, but the rest were single episodes.
The final episode aired 24 September 1976.
Except for one instance, all the pre-emptions on Channel 2 are mirrored by Channel 4. It's therefore possible that the afore-mentioned Channel 2 listing for The Donny and Marie Show on 22 July 1976, which does not have a corresponding appearance in the Channel 4 listings a week later, is incorrect, and that Doctor Who did air as usual.
Unlike Channel 2, Doctor Who returned to Channel 4 the following year.
After a ten month break, Doctor Who returned to Bacolod on Friday, 1 July 1977. For all 15 weeks, the timeslot was 8.30 to 9.30pm, which indicates two back to back episodes. The final episode was on 7 October 1977.
There is no clear record that the Philippines screened Doctor Who again.
TV listings
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← AIRDATES ...... (CLICK ICON TO GO TO TABLE SHOWING EPISODE BREAKDOWN AND AIRDATES - N/S = story title is Not Stated) |
TV listings have been obtained from the Bulletin Today and Philippines Daily Express.
All listings gave the series name as "Dr Who". No story titles were provided.
Aside from the standard TV schedule tables, the Daily Express also printed a half-page "TELEVISION TODAY" section, which featured a gallery of images advertising the programmes featuring that evening. But for only a few weeks during the 1976 run, Doctor Who always featured in these galleries. The images used were generally a cut-and-paste of cropped publicity photos of Jon Pertwee – or JOHN PERTWEE as the newspaper often credits. Sometimes the photo montage was the same, but the accompanying text was different.
The montages for 29 July and 20 August 1976 name the episodes as being The Ambassadors of Death, the only times that a story title is given.
However, two of the gallery photos have us completely stumped, as they are clearly NOT from Doctor Who:
- 13 March 1976: The photo features an unidentifiable man that is clearly NOT Jon Pertwee, but who bears a slight resemblance to actor Donald Sutherland or Christopher Lee.
- 15 July 1976: In this, two men (neither of whom is Jon Pertwee!), are perhaps fighting, with one grasping and/or supporting the other.
- If you are able to identify the films or TV programmes these images are from, please drop us a line!
The Philippines in Doctor Who
- In The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Doctor mentions having been with the Filipino Army during its advance on Reykjavik.
