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TV Asylum
Imported series have been a major part of British television schedules for
nearly half a century. The BBC might not have been a huge importer of
programmes until the end of the 1950s, but ITV quickly realised that they
could be attractive to viewers. One, Dragnet, even appeared on Associated-Rediffusion's
first solo evening of programming.
By the
middle of the following decade, imports - particularly westerns and crime
series - were a staple on both main channels. The Independent Television
Authority was sufficiently concerned about the situation that it urged the
commercial companies to restrict themselves to two imports on weeknights
between 8-9pm, something that would have affected A-R more than most because
ITC's American-aimed but British-made film series were shown in London by ATV.
The
genres of westerns and crime series weren't the only imports, however.
Comedies such as I Love Lucy, children's programming and science fiction
(including anthologies) were also bought in.
Repeating repeats
In an
era when repeats - especially archive ones - of home-produced programmes were
unusual, many imported series ran in the UK for years. Star Trek, for example,
was already out of production when it arrived in the UK in the summer of 1969,
but that didn't stop the BBC showing it every year until 1981, and then again
from 1984-6. Contrast that with Doctor Who, which only had a couple of stories
from the most recent season repeated, and that practice only really began in
the mid-1970s.
Even
if there weren't restrictions on the repeating of British programmes, US
series in particular had a major attraction to the BBC and ITV - they were in
colour. With the exception of ITC's film series and the later seasons of The
Avengers, the majority of British series would still have been produced in
black and white until the end of the 1960s.
That's
not to say that imported series made in black and white were consigned to the
rubbish bin. The BBC first showed the Franco-London Films series The
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1965, and continued showing it until 1982.
Even a decade after this, ancient Saturday matinee film series of Flash Gordon
or The Bat-Man would occasionally be dusted down for the school holidays,
although it's probable that broadcasters had an eye on the adult market as
well.
The
1980s saw a huge increase in broadcast hours, and naturally imported series
were used to plug many of the holes in the schedules. The expansion of daytime
television saw an influx of Australian imports, with Neighbours and Home and
Away proving hugely popular, while ITV's move to 24-hour broadcasting opened
up another market.
Cell
Block H
The
Australian series Prisoner (retitled Prisoner: Cell Block H for the UK) became
cult viewing in many regions, and it's easy to see the attraction that this
sort of series had for broadcasters. Not only were they cheap, but even series
that were now out of production often had hundreds of episodes available -
Prisoner had almost 700, while the 1960s version of The Fugitive (120
episodes) was rerun by many regions.
But
the largest expansion came with the launch of Channel 4 in November 1982.
Early imports included the Paul Hogan Show, while archive programmes such as
The Addams Family and The Munsters were able to attract a new audience that
hadn't been born when the series were first shown. Channel 4's imports during
the 1980s can be broadly split into three main categories - early evenings
(the two black and white series mentioned above, and later the likes of Family
Ties and Kate and Allie), peaktime (Cheers) and Sunday lunchtimes, which
towards the end of the decade saw reruns of 1960s Irwin Allen series.
Treat
them mean
However, the treatment of imported series varied wildly. Some, such as Dallas,
were major parts of the schedules, with primetime slots and episodes shown in
the correct order. Serials such as Robinson Crusoe would also have to be shown
in this way, but many others were shown with little or no regard to their
original running order. Star Trek¸ for example, opened in the UK with its
third episode, followed by numbers 4, 27, 22 and 6, with its first episode not
shown until halfway through the first UK 'season'.
The
reasons for this are many. Sometimes only a limited number of episodes were
acquired, while on others certain episodes couldn't be shown in the UK (e.g.
The Six Million Dollar Man episode Outrage in Balinderry was only shown once
by Southern before being banned). Christmas episodes would often be dropped
from their correct place in the run and shown later, and episodes would often
be cut - either because of content or because of timing (this particularly
affected feature-length pilots or two-part stories edited together).
BBC-1's long overdue move to a weekday schedule based around 30 and 60 minute
slots in the mid-1980s had an obvious impact on the way it handled imported
series. Previously the schedule had allowed for, say, The Rockford Files to be
shown at 7.20pm, followed by Panorama at 8.10 and then the main news at nine.
The new schedule would require half-hour imports to be padded out to a 30
minute slot or scheduled alongside of a flexible length such as Wogan or Top
of the Pops, while hour-long imports would require a short filler (e.g. when
Dallas was moved to a midweek slot, it would usually lead into Points of
View).
BBC-1's new schedule saw new timeslots for imports open up on BBC-2, notably
early evenings between 6-7.30pm and later between 9-10.30pm leading into
Newsnight. While many of the series in the former would be recent
teen-friendly fare, there were also the first complete network runs of series
like The Invaders, which had been subjected to the dreaded 'regional
variations' when shown on ITV in the late 1960s. This slot would later develop
into one primarily for science-fiction/fantasy series, although many fans
would object to the programmes being shown in an early evening timeslot.
By the
end of the 1980s, the four terrestrial broadcasters were no longer alone. 1989
saw the launch of Sky Television, followed a year later by BSB and naturally
both used imports extensively. Coupled with the launch of the Fox network in
the US (which would obviously have strong links with Sky), the arrival of
multi-channel television in Britain would have a major impact on the way
imported programmes were used by terrestrial broadcasters, as well as how
viewers would expect them to be treated.
Carl Ellis
Text ©
Carl Ellis | Compilation © Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
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