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Published on January 13th, 2014 | by James Lomond

Doctor Who and the Changing Value of Television


In a thorough, readable article he explores the history of how television content was handled by the BBC from the end of WWII onwards. Technology, the beaurocracy of a public broadcaster and the value ascribed to television content all play a part in why so much pre-1970 Who went missing and why some of it is turning up in exotic corners of the globe.

“Of the 253 episodes of Doctor Who produced by the BBC between 1963 and 1969, 97 are missing. This number had stood at 106, until the news broke early last month (October 2013) that nine lost episodes had been returned to the BBC after being located in Nigeria. The find represents the largest discovery of missing episodes ever and made front-page news; ‘THE LOST DOCTOR’ screamed the front page of the Daily Mirror on 11 October 2013. Dr Richard Wallace explains how the episodes came to be lost in space and time.”

Of particular interest is the way Dr Wallace examines how value can be measured and that the practice of wiping video tape in the 1960s to use it for another programme meant,

“Clearly the BBC felt that the programmes that it was making were worth far less than the video tape that they were made on.’

Wallace draws a distinction between commercial value, where something is seen as able to make money, and cultural value where it’s seen as valuable in its own right regardless of how much it costs. He asks the interesting question of what motivated the BBC’s heavy coverage of the discovery of 9 episodes of missing Doctor Who from 45 years ago.

“…the announcement of the return of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear was not timed to break the news of their recovery, as has generally been the case with previous missing episodes, but to announce their scheduling as DVD releases and their availability to download immediately via iTunes.”

Of course this ultimately begs the question of how we can distinguish cultural from commercial value at all – if someone values something for cultural reason (whether it’s music, football or the Mona Lisa) it will have market value and be commercially valuable to someone else. It depends who you’re asking…

Markets and Television Studies aside, Wallace does focus in on one staggering fact – that so much more attention was paid to these 9 episodes now than would have been five, let alone forty-five years ago.  Clearly this is, in part, to do with the current status of Doctor Who as an intrinsically valued product, and the focus on its historical legacy prompted by the 50th celebrations. I’d also suggest that the mystery and intrigue surrounding the idea of missing episodes contributes a great deal to the excitement around recovered material. Absence making the heart(s) grow fonder…

Either way, Wallace gives a concise and engaging history of telly and its journey from studio, to screen, to film canister, to the exotic ends of the Earth. Take a look and tell us what you think. Is Doctor Who valued by the BBC for cultural reasons or for the money it can make? And is there any difference? And WHY was there SO much excitement around the discovery of 45 year old, black and white tea-time terror and HOW did it top the download charts in several countries?…

(With thanks to Gareth J)
“Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes and the Changing Value of Television” by Dr Richard Wallace is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/culture/doctor-who-missing-episodes-and-the-changing-value-of-television.


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6 Responses to Doctor Who and the Changing Value of Television

  1. avatar dr jon says:

    Dr who is valued for both cultural and money,cultural to the fans and money for BBC enterprise’s to produce programs for fans and viewers. Which in turn makes more money for growth to expand the BBC. The two go hand in hand and always will.

  2. avatar Christine says:

    Difficult questions. To the BBC, and any other broadcaster, the commercial value is important. Bot for a public broadcaster cultural value should be important too. On the one hand, providing us with 9 episodes of lost Doctor Who, is a cultural miracle (we can call it that, can’t we?), but on the other it’s also extremely profitable to present them just a month befoe the 50th. I expect someone at the BBC realised the potential. And now it’s bothe: cultural heritage and commercially viable. Who could wish for more than that?

  3. avatar Phillip says:

    I think the fact we recieved Enemy of the world and Web of fear along with the cancellation of further animations says alot. I believe the release of those two stories was designed to throw the Omnirumor under a rug, and many more lost eps were recovered…only reason for not announcing more found episodes would be because of the question of quality and reworking the episodes for actual sale. It would certainly suck for B.B.C. to announce the find of almost all the missing episodes and then turn around and say; oh…by the way we could only salvage 16 more episodes and collection of misc. Clips..wooops, sorry guys! Atleast this way lost eps. Can trickle down every few years…And feel more special and appreciated.

  4. avatar TimeChaser says:

    Doctor Who’s cultural value will always outweigh its commercial value. Yes, people make money off it, but its for US, the FANS, more than anything, and always will be. That’s why it has refused to die in the past and will go on into the future.

    Sadly, as long as there is money, we won’t get it for free, but at least we can enjoy the fruits of so many labors, on TV, in print, and in audio.

  5. avatar Christopher Martin says:

    An interesting perspective that I enjoyed reading. Ultimately it’s a conjunction of the shifting measure of worth of Dr Who commercially and the belief that a television programme itself can have cultural value.

    Perhaps the belief at the BBC was that the cultural value, especially at that specific time, fed into its commercial value.

  6. I read the full article and think the observations made are very curious indeed as to how the BBC, as a television producer, has come to change the way it views its own output in terms of “value,” both commercially and culturally. I think the way the television audience has viewed television through its history has changed, too, though. One thing follows the other.

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