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From: johnf@apollo.uucp (John Francis)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: Hartnell, Troughton, ...
Message-ID: <2aa5cd15.917@apollo.uucp>
Date: Tue, 10-Dec-85 16:47:44 EST
Article-I.D.: apollo.2aa5cd15.917
Posted: Tue Dec 10 16:47:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Dec-85 05:18:08 EST
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, Mass.
Lines: 31

Something you might like to bring to the attention of your local PBS station:

WENH (the New Hampshire PBS station) has found that Dr. Who is its biggest single
fund-raiser. Every pledge time they run Dr. Who "specials" like the 5 (or 3) doctors,
and last time we got a "sneak preview" of their forthcoming attractions - they
ran "An Unearthly Child" (the first story-line of the first series - but you ALL
knew that, didn't you :-). As Dr. Who is their biggest fund-raiser, they listen to
what the Dr. Who watchers want, and so we will be getting to see the William Hartnell,
Patrick Troughton, and early Jon Pertwee episodes. In fact they used this as bait -
sort of "give us enough money and we promise to buy the early Dr. Who episodes".
Now WENH is not a very large PBS station, and a goodly portion of their audience
(a portion which includes me) can receive not only WENH but also WGBH (Boston),
which IS a large PBS station. WGBH is the station which brings you "Masterpiece
Theatre", "Nova", and a whole lot more besides (I think they are now also
responsible for "Mystery", although this used to come from the New York station).
This means that a lot of the people who COULD contribute to WENH may well contribute
to WGBH instead, so WENH have to find something to make them "special". Dr. Who is
their answer, and it seems to work! (WGBH are just re-cycling the same old episodes
of late Jon Pertwee - Tom Baker - Peter Davison).
So - get organized! If enough people are prepared to pledge enough money you should
be able to persuade your local PBS station to buy anything you want to see. All you
need to do is pay. [Cable Viewers: Just consider PBS to be a premium channel, and
put aside $10 a month.] $120 a year is enough to make PBS stations VERY interested -
if you can get 500 people to pledge this much I think your PBS station would be
prepared to show just about anything - even 150 should be enough to buy a Dr. Who
series from Lionheart (the figure $10,000 seems to crop up in my memory), together
with enough left over to pay for the electricity and equipment operators.
A historical note - I have lived on this side of the Atlantic for over five years
now. When I arrived the portion of the PBS viewing audience that contributed was
about 13% - it is now over 20% (at least in this area). If your local PBS station
is still in the 13% bracket Dr. Who might give them a boost as well!