User:Jon Preddle
Zambia is in south west Africa. It is bordered by Rhodesia.
Profile
| Country Number (10) | 1965 | FIRST WAVE |
| Region | Africa | Commonwealth |
| Television commenced | 1961 | |
| Colour System | 1979 | PAL |
| Population | 1966 | 3.65 million |
| TV Sets | 1966 | 11,118 |
| Population | 1976 | 4.64 million |
| TV Sets | 1966 | 22,500 |
| Language/s | English |
Television Stations / Channels
Zambia began its television service in 1961.
There is only one national television broadcaster, Television Zambia (ZTV), which was in 1979 the first country to introduce the (PAL) colour system within Africa.
In the mid-1960s, ZTV operated from two regional stations, the northern station in the Copperbelt district / Kitwe (on channel 4), and the southern regions from the capital, Lusaka (on channel 3). (Transmissions from Lusaka commenced from 25 December 1965.)
A third repeater was established in 1968 in Kabwe. The three stations were connected as a network by microwave interconnection.
Language/s
The principal language of Zambia is English.
DOCTOR WHO IN ZAMBIA
Zambia was the 10th country to screen Doctor Who, and the third in Africa (see Selling Doctor Who).
BBC Records
The Seventies records a sale of "(36)" stories by 28 February 1977. The Handbook, however, identifies 38; 26 for Hartnell and 12 from Troughton. This total agrees with the number of stories that did air, per the story tables below.
In DWM, Zambia is identified in 37 story Archives: the same as above, but with the single omission of A.
Stories bought and broadcast
WILLIAM HARTNELL
Twenty-six stories, 117 episodes:
| A | An Unearthly Child | 4 |
| B | The Daleks | 7 |
| C | Inside the Spaceship | 2 |
| D | Marco Polo | 7 |
| E | The Keys of Marinus | 6 |
| F | The Aztecs | 4 |
| G | The Sensorites | 6 |
| H | The Reign of Terror | 6 |
| J | Planet of Giants | 3 |
| K | The Dalek Invasion of Earth | 6 |
| L | The Rescue | 2 |
| M | The Romans | 4 |
| N | The Web Planet | 6 |
| P | The Crusade | 4 |
| Q | The Space Museum | 4 |
| R | The Chase | 6 |
| S | The Time Meddler | 4 |
| T | Galaxy 4 | 4 |
| U | The Myth Makers | 4 |
| W | The Massacre | 4 |
| X | The Ark | 4 |
| Y | The Celestial Toymaker | 4 |
| Z | The Gunfighters | 4 |
| AA | The Savages | 4 |
| BB | The War Machines | 4 |
| CC | The Smugglers | 4 |
Zambia therefore bought GROUPs A to F of the William Hartnell stories (the only other country to buy just this run of episodes was Barbados).
The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.
Origins of the Prints?
Zambia's prints of the first eleven Hartnell stories were definitely sourced from Rhodesia / Zimbabwe, which was the previous African country to screen those eleven stories.
Nigeria may have been the source of the season two episodes. Zambia was the first African nation to screen the stories from season three.
PATRICK TROUGHTON
Twelve stories, 68 episodes:
| FF | The Highlanders | 4 |
| GG | The Underwater Menace | 4 |
| HH | The Moonbase | 4 |
| JJ | The Macra Terror | 4 |
| KK | The Faceless Ones | 6 |
| NN | The Abominable Snowmen | 6 |
| OO | The Ice Warriors | 6 |
| PP | The Enemy of the World | 6 |
| The Web of Fear | 6 | |
| XX | The Seeds of Death | 6 |
| YY | The Space Pirates | 6 |
| ZZ | The War Games | 10 |
Zambia therefore bought GROUP B, most of D, and F of the Patrick Troughton stories.
The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.
Origins of the Prints?
Zambia was the only African country to screen the set of twelve Troughtons that was supplied. These may have been sourced from Gibraltar.
Transmission
WILLIAM HARTNELL
KITWE / COPPERBELT
The series was scheduled to commence from Sunday, 26 September 1965, however the films were not received from Rhodesia / Zimbabwe in time, so the scheduled programme was replaced with an episode of the Canadian series, The Forest Rangers.
The very fact that Rhodesia commenced the series on 26 September 1965, which was also the scheduled date for its debut in Zambia, strongly implies that Rhodesia's debut of the series was also delayed, presumably due to non-arrival of the films (from Nigeria?).
Doctor Who was re-scheduled by ZTV for the following week, but the 3 October 1965 screening was also pre-empted by The Forest Rangers, again due to non-receipt of the Doctor Who films from Rhodesia.
Third time lucky? Sadly, no: the 10 October 1965 screening was also pre-empted.
Success! On Sunday, 17 October 1965, at 5.40pm, after three weeks of continued delays, Doctor Who finally went to air on ZTV.
The time changed to 5.45pm from 14 November with the second serial, The Daleks. In April, the series moved to Saturdays, but for the first week of the change, an episode aired on Saturday as well as Sunday, 2 and 3 April.
There was another day change from 7 June 1966 – now Tuesdays at 6.10pm - where it remained for the rest of the run, which came to an end on 6 June 1967, with part four of The Time Meddler.
The series aired over a period spanning 87 weeks, but with there being only 81 episodes to account for, there must have been six weeks on which no episode aired. These pre-emptions appear to have been mainly in February / March 1967 – see TV listings below. (There was no episode on 21 February and 9 May of that year.)
- NOTE: TV listings for Kitwe / Copperbelt were not available beyond June 1967, so further details for screenings of Doctor Who in that area are unknown.
LUSAKA
TV broadcasts to the southern regions of Zambia were introduced from 25 December 1965. Doctor Who commenced from Sunday, 13 March 1966, at 5.40pm. However, rather than beginning with An Unearthly Child, the screenings started with The Keys of Marinus, which had started in Kitwe / Copperbelt only the week before. Screenings of the same episode but one week apart, continued in that manner with the film being transported from Kitwe to Lusaka.
The day of the week and timeslot for Lusaka changed to match those of the Kitwe broadcasts, before settling in on Tuesdays at 6.20pm from August 1966.
The run concluded on 13 June 1967, a week after Kitwe, with The Time Meddler part four. Again, the run played six weeks more than the number of available episodes. These pre-emptions seem to have occurred in March / April 1967.
Eight months later Doctor Who returned to the Lusaka region; from Tuesday 6 February 1968, at 6.10pm, re-commencing from where the previous run had ended. (Presumably the same episodes aired a week earlier in Kitwe / Copperbelt.)
Only two serials aired – Galaxy 4 and The Myth Maker – before the series took a one week break. (Replaced by Dennis the Menace.) Screenings resumed from 9 April 1968 (presumably with The Massacre).
The series moved to 5.40pm in June 1968. There was another break of a week between The Ark and The Gunfighters. Further pre-emptions occurred during The War Machines (was there perhaps a problem with completing delivery of the films from Kitwe to Lusaka?)
There were several timeslot changes, from 6.00pm, to 6.10, then 6.20pm.
The run concluded on 5 November 1968, with (presumably) part four of The Smugglers.
By this time, the microwave network across the country had been established, so presumably the same episode was being screened across all regions.
PATRICK TROUGHTON
When the series returned 17 months later, it was with a new Doctor. A further 16 week run commenced from Wednesday, 8 April 1970, at 5.50pm; BBC Records indicate these were The Highlanders to The Macra Terror. (The series took a between-serial break for a week on 3 June 1970.)
Neither The Tenth Planet or The Power of the Daleks screened in Zambia (most likely on account of the latter having been withdrawn from sale under Terry Nation's agreement with the BBC), so viewers were offered no on-screen explanation for the change in appearance of the lead character.
It wasn't for another three years that Doctor Who aired in Zambia again. A 30 week / episode run commenced on Monday, 11 June 1973', at 5.50pm. There was a change of time to 6.20pm with the fifth episode, then to 5.30pm from August 1973 to the end of the run, which ended on 31 December 1973. The serials to air would have been The Faceless Ones to The Web of Fear] (skipping The Evil of the Daleks and The Tomb of the Cybermen).
25 months later, Thursday, 5 February 1976, a 22-week run commenced. The timeslot changed several times, from 6.35pm at the start of the run, to 6.00pm at the end. BBC Records indicate these 22 weeks were the final three Patrick Troughton serials. (Zambia therefore skipped over six serials.)
The 185th and final episode of Doctor Who to air in Zambia screened on 1 July 1976.
There is no clear record that Zambia screened Doctor Who again, even after the switch to colour in 1979.
Fate of the Prints?
Uganda was the next African country to air the first eleven William Hartnell stories that had been transmitted in Zambia in 1965-1966.
Nigeria may have been the recipient of the Troughton stories that aired in Zambia in 1973.
Zambia was the last country to screen the now-missing serial The Space Pirates.
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 newspapers Zambia News, Zambia Mail and Times of Zambia. The listings in the News were in a "Radio and TV Guide" section.
The listings always gave the title as "Dr Who". For the three weeks that the series' debut was delayed, the Zambia News carried a brief explanation as to why this had happened.
- 26 September 1965: WHERE, WHEN , WHY ANDS WHAT HAPPEEND TO DR WHO?
- 10 October 1965: THIRD TIME LUCKY?
- 17 October 1965: TONIGHT, MAYBE?
The News and Mail carried titles for the majority of the episodes for the 1965 to 1967 run. For the first four serials, the News carried short synopses.
For the 1968 run, only five of the 36 episodes were identified by title.
On 14 May 1966, the News reprinted an interview with William Hartnell (Oh the Agony of being Dr Who) that had originated in the UK Daily Mirror (April 1966 – see Ghana.)
The 3 July 1966 issue of the News TV and Radio Extra featured an interview with Dalek operator Robert Jewell (My Dad's a Dalek!)
Some printing oddities occurred in the papers: for the second serial, the enemy of the Daleks were named as Thaals. Part four of The Keys of Marinus was given as Shows of Terror'. Part three of The Sensorites was billed by the unusual name of Contamination! Part two of The Reign of Terror was Quest of Madame Guillotine. The last three episodes of The Web Planet were also mixed up or duplicated. Galaxy 4 part three was Air Look.
Between October 1966 and April 1967 there were quite a few newspapers missing. As noted above, there are six weeks more than the number of episodes; presumably there were pre-emptions on the dates for which no paper was available. (If so, the majority of these 'breaks' were between episodes of The Space Museum and The Chase.)
During the 1968 run, the Zambia Mail did not always have TV listings; instead an apology was printed that that they were unable to publish the listings "as they were not available from TVZ at the time of going to press". This means the start date of 6 February 1968 is only assumed.
None of the listings for the 1970, 1973 and 1976 runs had episode titles: the listings give the title "Dr Who".
