Mathematical puzzle

The picture has absolutely nothing at all to do with what I'm going to say - it's just a clock.

And now to work:

Here's something that's always looked like a bit of a mystery. According to Broadwcast, BBC records - specifically, a memo dated 7 July 1965 -  show that, in 1965, Television International Enterprises Ltd (TIE) 'bought [Doctor Who] prints for showing in Gibraltar, Aden, Trinidad, and Bermuda". 

Those prints were the following stories (26 episodes):

• An Unearthly Child
• The Daleks
• Inside the Spaceship
• Marco Polo
• The Keys of Marinus

And the price TIE paid was (according to Broadwcast's report of the same July 1965 memo) £1,587 2s 11d, at £75 per print.

This presents a bit of a maths problem. Whether they bought one set of prints, two sets, or thee or four sets (26, 52, 78 or 104 individual episodes), there's no way to arrive at a total price of £1,587 2s 11d if each print was £75. What you get is a range of answers from £1,950 to £7,800. 

Why is this? Well, I think the answer is actually quite straightforward, as it turns out. They weren't paying £75 per print - they were paying £75 per hour.

Gloriously, shuzbot from the Planet Mondas Forum was able to get hold of TIE's written proposal for setting up a television service in Aden (from the British Library - see this link). 

The document dates from 23 February 1962 according to the National Archives listing (there doesn't seem to be a date on the document itself, but it mentions on page three that Jamaica's TV service is due to start 'early next year', and it in fact started in August 1963).

Appendix IV outlines the costs that will be involved in obtaining programme material from the BBC and others. The bit that relates to the BBC says this:

'... The production and programme property available for Commonwealth Television Services can be obtained for Aden at approximately $40 per hour excluding freight provided that Aden Television accepts material that is being supplied to at least four other stations for which TIE (Sales) has programming responsibility' 

The document then goes on to talk about other distributors, including ITC (distributors for ATV), whose material is said to be obtainable for 'US $40 per hour under the same conditions as for the BBC'. 

Notably, it also mentions 'Granada and AR' (the latter must mean Associated Rediffusion), saying that they 'have yet to be approached over the $20 per half hour basic price' but are 'likely' to accept it. 

So: on the face of it, TIE's MO was to contact the programme distributors they proposed to buy from in advance of actually buying anything, and negotiate a flat hourly rate for all future programme purchases.

And if that equated to a cost of $40 per hour to each of five stations, as the Aden proposal suggests, then the overall rate was $200 per hour.

Was it still $200 per hour in 1965? Well, it would have been sensible for TIE to negotiate a deal that covered a number of years, so that they could have a degree of certainty about their incomings and outgoings. And, in that connection, it's worth noting that the Aden proposal itself includes forecasts for the next five years. 

The dollar to pound exchange rate didn't move around much between 1962 and 1965. In 1962, $200 was just under £71; and in 1965, it was just under £72 (there are lots of places on the Internet where you can check this). That's pretty close to the £75 figure quoted in that BBC memo.

But I think the clincher is this: I've added up the total duration of the first five Doctor Who serials, using the timings available on the Doctor Who Reference Guide site. 

Those first 26 episodes had a combined total duration of 634 minutes, 26 seconds. And £75 per hour is £1.25 per minute. 

So that would make the total cost of one set of prints (priced down to the last second), £793.04.

£793.04?! That's a bit disappointing. It still doesn't seem to fit. 

Unless ... TIE bought two sets of prints. Which, at £75 per hour, would be £1,586.08. 

And that is pretty close to the £1,587 2s 11d that they actually paid. 

Factor in the likelihood of some small discrepancies between the episode timings I've used and the ones used by the BBC (there'd need to be less than a minute's worth of difference overall), and it's close enough to persuade me that TIE did buy two sets of prints, and paid £75 per hour for them.

And that's it. 

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 9

Back briefly to the thrills and spills of TTI and TIE now, with a short extract from the 12 June 2014 issue of Le Matinal, a Mauritian newspaper. 

It's an article celebrating 50 years of the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation:

My French isn't very good. In fact, it's hopeless. But that does seem to say that TIE and TTI were part of the consortium that set up the MBC in 1964. 

And MBC broadcast 75 episodes of Hartnell Who between 21 October 1966 and 29 March 1968 (see Broadwcast for details). 

Partie 10 suivra eventuellement.

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 8

Part 8. We're nearly done. Hang on.

The flag of Sierra Leone ('Lion Mountains') doesn't have a lion on it. That seems like a bit of an oversight.

But - again - there's no time to fret about it, because this is another easy one:

That's from page 953 of the 1967 World Television Factbook. And, again, TTI and TIE are both present and correct.

Part 9 awaits.

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 7

Part 7, being the Seventh Part, in which Ethiopia is briefly discussed, and a splash of colour is introduced.

The Ethiopian flag, from 1941 to 1975. I'm not sure the lion is actually running away from home, if you look closely. It only seems that way from a distance. 

Sit nearer your screen, and it'll be fine. You won't have to worry about how he'll manage, whether he'll fall in with a bad crowd, how worried his parents will be - none of that. 

And you won't have time, because this is an easy one, and will not detain us long. 

Here is the entry for Ethiopia on page 942 of the 1967 World Television Factbook:

And there's also this, from African Media Development Initiative: Ethiopia Context, a report by the BBC World Service Trust:

So: TTI and TIE played together nicely in Ethiopia. Now, quick - head for Part 8!

Alternatively, if you'd rather dawdle around and find out whether Ethiopian TV is really all that bad, you can find some here:

http://www.ethiotube.net/

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 6

That was a nice rest. Hello, Part 6. 

With huge thanks to shuzbot from the Planet Mondas Forum for much of this, let us now amble onwards to the last four broadcasters for whom (according to that 1966 advertisement) TIE bought television programmes; namely, EBS in Ethiopia, MBC in Mauritius, SLTV in Sierra Leone, STV in Sudan

Some general sources of information first. This is from page 29 of a 1974 UNESCO report called Television traffic: A one-way street? A survey and analysis of the international flow of television programme material:

TTI and TIE also get a mention on page 53 of the report:

And this is from page 109 of The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Volume 3 (1970, Erik Barnouw):

So those, taken together, point to TTI being active in all four of our remaining countries - cue a rousing chorus of 'Sudan, Mauritius, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia'. 

However! There is more to ponder in Part 7. Come along, Ponderer.

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 5

How lovely to find ourselves in Part 5 at last.

Where else were TIE and TTI to be found holding hands? Well, the 1966 TIE advert also refers to Trinidad and Tobago, and to Barbados. Were TTI there too?

Well, there's this:

That's from page 107 of  Third World Mass Media and Their Search for Modernity: The Case of  Caribbean Commonwealth (1979, John A Lent).

And we'll rest there for a bit. Phew.

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 4

Part 4, here we go.

It's not been quite so easy to prove TTI and TIE were a matched pair in places other than Aden, Bermuda and Kenya. But this 1966 advertisement, culled from Broadwcast, lists other broadcasters for which TIE bought programmes:

Gibraltar, eh? According to Gibraltar, Identity and Empire (2006,  Edward G. Archer), TTI ran the Gibraltarian TV service for years:

Part 5, here we come!

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 3

Part 3 is upon us. Where else did TTI run TV services along with TIE?

Kenya, certainly, as this excerpt from the Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) for 24 June 1963 shows:

Scottish Television belonged to Lord Thomson of Fleet. He founded it in the '50s. And he was, of course, also behind TTI. And note that the Jamaican consortium referred to in part 2 was called 'The Scottish Television Consortium'.

Onward to Part 4! No slacking!

Aden to Bermuda and beyond - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2. This is what else Bermuda has to offer (leaving aside shorts and sunshine):

That's from the 10 April 1965 edition of the Bermuda Recorder.  And where it refers to 'Television Enterprises' it means Television International Enterprises Ltd (TIE). Colin Campbell was one of the people who set up and ran TIE, alongside Sir David Stirling.

So: this article says that TIE handle programming in 'areas where Thomson Television [International] Ltd have interests'. And, certainly, they handled programming in Aden, where Thomson Television International (TTI) provided the technical expertise and equipment. 

So: can we safely assume that where TTI went, TIE went too? They did in Jamaica, as is apparent from Ministry Paper No. 61 of the Government of Jamaica, dated 16 May 1962. The paper sets out the agreed arrangements for setting up the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation. And look who the managing agents are: 

Anywhere else? Let's find out in Part 3.

Aden

I found some stuff recently relating to the South Arabian Broadcasting Service (SABS). SABS ran the the TV service in Aden - which showed Doctor Who in 1965-66. 

First, here's an example of their television schedule for week commencing 19 May 1966. Doctor Who is on at 6:40 on Sunday:

Abbott and Costello! The Saint! Football Match! Arabic Song! Wrestling! Closing Down! That's what I call a schedule. 

Anyway. That's from a British Petroleum employee magazine called - rather wonderfully, I think - 'Jottings'. There are a few more editions here. But they mostly don't have TV listings. Presumably on health and safety grounds. It would be dangerous to risk overexciting people who work around heavy machinery and flammable liquids, I imagine.

The other thing I found was an article about how SABS was set up. It includes a few details of the involvement of Television International Enterprises Ltd (TIE) and Thomson Television (International) Ltd - TTI for short. It also confirms that the BBC provided some engineering staff on secondment.  

I'll come back to TIE, TTI and the issue of BBC secondments at a later date. For now, enjoy (if you can) these historic pages. Specifically, these historic pages 61 to 63 of the Port of Aden Annual for 1966-7, the whole of which you can find here.