Rhodesia and Zambia - The Picture Round

Copyright exzim

Faithful followers of this blog (I know I may be imagining you) will remember that, in this post, in furtherance of my eccentric anti-bicycling agenda, I set out a fairly convoluted argument to the effect that RTV in Rhodesia and ZTV in Zambia were the same company at around the time both bought and showed Doctor Who. That, I suggested, was why their TV schedules were so similar. 

I do enjoy a convoluted argument. But this is, to some extent, a Doctor Who flavoured blog. And it therefore occurred to me (quite naturally) that the simplest thing to do would be to travel back in time, and get myself some photographic evidence.

Impossible, you say? It sort of isn't. This link will take you to a collection of photographs by 'exzim', who worked for RTV in Kitwe (Zambia) from 1963 to 1965, and in Salisbury (Rhodesia) in 1966. And he's very kindly given me his permission to reproduce the pictures that follow. I'm enormously grateful.

Before going further, though, I need to stress that they are copyright and they mustn't be copied or linked to without his express agreement. I know what you Internet types are like. Don't do it, kids.

By way of background, exzim was one of four British engineers hired by RTV in mid-1963; he and one other went to Kitwe, one went to Salisbury, and one to Bulawayo.  

exzim and his colleague's contracts then passed to the new ZTV on independence. And, after two years, while the others returned to England, he went on to work at RTV in Salisbury (his former Kitwe colleague returned to work in Zambia briefly in 1967 and, on the instructions of the Zambian government, moved the equipment to Lusaka). 

Here are the RTV Studios in Kitwe in 1963:

Copyright exzim - see http://www.pbase.com/exzim/profile

Notice the RTV logo?  I gather it was replaced with a ZTV one eventually. And this next picture is between those two stages, when the RTV logo has been removed, but the ZTV one hasn't yet been added:

Copyright exzim - see http://www.pbase.com/exzim/profile

Neither logo is in evidence in the next picture either. But it's useful to have a fair idea of what somewhere you're  reading about actually looked like, and I've included it for completeness:

Copyright exzim - see http://www.pbase.com/exzim/profile

Moving on to Salisbury in 1966, I think some inside views are called for:

Copyright exzim - see http://www.pbase.com/exzim/profile

Copyright exzim - see http://www.pbase.com/exzim/profile

A serious news programme for a time of serious news. 

I recognise Harold Wilson and Ian Smith, but not the others. The camera, presumably, is a Philips* one (I'll come back to that below).

Back outside, this picture documents an attempt to set up a video link from the RTV studio in Highlands to the downtown:

I don't know about you, but I  enjoyed those. What's more, as you'll have gathered above, exzim was also kind enough to tell me a little about his time at RTV. 

Again with his permission, here's some of what he had to say:

'Your summary of the relations between ITV, RTV, and ZTV is correct as far as I know. They had a lock on distribution rights for that area for many programs, it wasn't big enough for people to fight over, so they split ITV to avoid sanctions and just went on'. 

And: 

'The Dutch ownership resulted in all the equipment being of Phillips manufacture, which made replacement parts availability difficult. But the work was of interest, and I always say I learnt my job in Africa.'

 And, intriguingly, this:  

'Before UDI, while some sort of relations existed between Zambia and Rhodesia, the programs were 'bicycled' by Central African Airways. With UDI, and the breakup of CAA, the programs were shipped back to South Africa, then back to the UK and then back to Zambia as I understand. But I'm not sure, I was in Salisbury when UDI occurred.'

And:

'I would think in those days (1960s) there was insufficient air traffic between African nations to make biking the tapes or films between them possible. My guess is that they were returned to London, and then sent on from there. To the best of my knowledge, which admittedly could be wrong, it was quicker to fly from Lusaka into London and then out to Nigeria, than to try to fly to Nigeria directly. BOAC had a daily overnight flight to Kenya, Ndola in Zambia, Salisbury, (Harare) and Johannesburg, and South African Airway had the same. We had spare tubes (valves) for the equipment delivered that way. After UDI the Salisbury stop was dropped. 

Sabena had a flight out of Brussels that went Madrid (I think), 
Kinshasa (Leopoldville), Johannesburg, and various ex French states had connections into Paris.  

After UDI and the movement against apartheid got going, SAA changed their routing to Luanda in Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, Geneva, London, and TAP, the Portuguese airline did the same. 

Air traffic was still a colonial times relic.'  

More about these and other things later, I hope. 

Meanwhile, exzim's galleries also include some fascinating photographs of his time at ABC in Teddington, Middlesex. Not least of these is a photograph of a production meeting for Armchair Theatre, which is of course another series with lots of missing episodes. You should take a look.

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*Small update (18 April 2015) - it appears that this is in fact a Fernseh camera! Thanks to exzim and his Facebook associates for clarifying that. It looks like the 1963 model shown here:

http://www.oebl.de/Fernseh/Kamera/index.html

Rhodesia and Zambia

I'm going to take a break from the TTI/TIE marathon for a moment and go back to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland - also known as the Central African Federation, which was dissolved on 31 December 1963 and became:

• Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia)
• Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe)
• Nyasaland (later Malawi).

Assiduous readers will recall that, in this post, I mooted a radical and typically ill-informed hypothesis: that the fact that, when Doctor Who started to be broadcast in Zambia and Rhodesia, both countries had virtually identical TV schedules (three weeks apart) might not really be evidence of 'bicycling' in the sense that it's usually understood. It looked possible that this was a special case, resulting from the fact that the two countries were effectively one when their TV systems were set up in 1960 and 1961. 

I've found some evidence to support that. And it also suggests a reason why there was a delay in sending the series from Rhodesia to Zambia, as reported in this newspaper story (which, again, I've borrowed from Broadwcast):

The series was supposed to hit Zambian TV screens on 19 September 1965:

Borrowed from Broadwcast!

But it was delayed until 17 October 1965. Why?

Now! This is going to be a bit of a roller-coaster ride. According to Page 97 of the August 1960 edition of Television Magazine, the contract to operate a TV service in the Central African Federation (with stations planned in Rhodesia and the Copperbelt Province of the future Zambia) went to Rhodesia Television Ltd (RTV), which was owned by an unnamed Dutch group:

Who were these mysterious Dutchmen? Well, on page 82 of the 11 January 1965 edition of Broadcasting Magazine, there's a story about the nationalisation of RTV. And, according to that story, RTV's previous commercial operator (which would continue to supply programmes after nationalisation) was a company called International TeleVision (Pvt) Ltd. It was based in Salisbury, and had stations not only in Rhodesia (Salisbury and Bulawayo) but also at Kitwe in the Zambian Copperbelt  - see the last paragraph:

By this time, the TV service in Zambia was ostensibly run by a company called Zambia TV Ltd, and not by RTV. But Zambia TV Ltd seems to have been only nominally a different company. The same contractors ran it, under licence. 

This is from a UNESCO report of a mission to Northern Rhodesia (following the 1963 break-up of the Central African Federation, what had been 'Northern Rhodesia' became the independent Republic of Zambia on 24 October 1964):

The same report has this to offer, on page 21:

And then, from the 1967 edition of the invaluable Television Factbook, there's this:

So, the situation seems to have been as follows:

• Zambia TV had a contract for the supply of programmes with a company called ITV. And that must have been International TeleVision (Pvt) Ltd, who had also remained the Salisbury-based programme supplier for RTV, even after nationalisation in 1965 (although, by 1967 at least, they seem to have had a Zambian subsidiary)

• Zambia TV's contract with ITV was due to end on 31 August 1965, the day before television and broadcasting in Zambia TV was to come under the direct control of the Ministry of Information. 

• And the Ministry was busily trying to negotiate an extension, while dealing at the same time with taking over responsibility for a television service that was evidently in a certain amount of disarray

Is it really any wonder that there was a delay of nearly a month before Doctor Who was flown up from Salisbury and began to screen in Zambia on 17 October 1965? And is it any wonder that RTV's 1965 schedules were so very similar to ZTV's schedules, if they had exactly the same programme supplier? 

On the face of it, this isn't really bicycling as we know it. And it might be worth finding out what happened to International Television (Pvt) Ltd, and whether they ever had any interesting warehouses anywhere  ...

Zambian flag! 

Ahem. A small update, 1 April 2015: It's been gently pointed out to me that the above doesn't factor in the effect of trade sanctions imposed on Rhodesia after UDI. 

However, these had no bearing on sales of BBC TV programmes. 

From Hansard, 12 March 1968:

'85. Mr. Hugh Jenkins asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs why the British Broadcasting Corporation are allowed to sell television programmes, including the Forsyte Saga and Pinky and Perky, to Rhodesia; and if he will now tighten up sanctions with a view to forbidding such sales.

Mr. George Thomas: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear on 31st January, 1966, when he announced the embargo on virtually all trade with Rhodesia, that it was not the intention to interfere with the free movement of books, periodicals and cinema films. Television films come under the heading cinema films.

While Her Majesty's Government are opposed to any action which might inhibit freedom of expression or impede the movement of news and information, the effectiveness of this sanction, together with others, is continually under review.'

So there!

Workers Of The World Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Bicycling Chains!

[This is largely lifted from a post I made on 25 February 2015 on the very wonderful Planet Mondas Forum].

Serious students of Doctor Who's overseas sales and transmissions in the 1960s and early 1970s will be familiar with the notion of bicycling chains. We've all pored over them for hours, long into the night, with only strong drink to sustain us, and a glowing cigarette end to light our way.
















For frivolous students of Doctor Who, teetotallers and non-smokers, the idea, in a nutshell is this: not all overseas broadcasters would get a fresh set of telerecordings straight from BBC Television Enterprises when they bought the series. The sales were made on the basis that a broadcaster would, on demand, return the prints; destroy them; or send ('bicycle') them on to another broadcaster. 

One obvious advantage of this was that it was cheaper than striking new prints all the time; and another was that, if the country receiving the print was relatively close to the one sending it, shipping would also be cheaper and quicker. 

Clearly, bicycling did happen. There's a 1966 article in The Listener that mentions it, which has been published for posterity on Broadwcast - 'A comprehensive online guide to the foreign airdates and worldwide transmissions of Doctor Who'. 

But. Did it happen to the extent that Broadwcast suggests?  I wish to propose a radical new hypothesis for consideration: No, it probably didn't. I'm inclined to think that bicycling chains are largely an illusion, caused by staring too long and too hard at things from a distance of 50 years (yes, like the canals of Mars). 

For starters, one key piece of evidence for their existence seems to be the fact that Rhodesia and Zambia had extraordinarily similar TV schedules (three weeks apart) when Doctor Who debuted in 1965. 

But that may very well have been a special and exceptional case, given that they were effectively the same country when their respective TV stations began in 1960 and 1961: namely, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which didn't break up until the end of 1963. 

There's a great big version of this map here. 

Moreover: Broadwcast's bicycling chains page notes that, according to the 1967 BBC Handbook (page 34), Television Enterprises' Programme Supply Department had sent out 10,700 prints the previous year, and 'in addition' some 3,000 prints were bicycled. It's suggested that this means that most prints 'were only used once'. 

But it doesn't necessarily mean that at all. Some of those 10,700 could have been prints that had been sent out once, sent back to the BBC, and then sent out again. 

And, any way you look at it, the conclusion has to be that, when a TV station received a BBC programme in 1967, it would have been bicycled from somewhere else in only 28% of cases. 

Again - none of this is to suggest that bicycling didn't happen at all. Obviously, it did. But we could easily be talking mostly about ad hoc arrangements that existed between limited numbers of broadcasters who happened to be geographically close to one another and/or linked in some way, not long and complicated chains spanning multiple countries or even continents. 

I therefore wonder whether our default assumption when considering a particular country's Doctor Who purchases should be: they probably got them direct from the BBC and probably didn't send them on to anyone else.