With all this rating noncene going on at the moment someone said that the press helped destroy the show's reputation in the 80's if that's true could they do it again? Hoonestly why do people hate Who so much? it's a harmless show for families to enjoy and I don't understand all this negativity towards it.

I wouldn't say the press destroyed it as such. Certainly they were scathing in the manner only the British press can be. But they had to be given the ammunition in the first place.

And as much as I respect the guy, the late JNT was certainly guilty of the more Panto-ish elements that creeped in ever more increasingly in his tenure, no more so in his choice of guest appearences & Bonnie Langford.

Dr Who destroyed Dr Who in the eighties.

JNT just gave them the ammunition. But they wernt needed as the production team were doing a good job themselves.

Rubbish. The only ones who 'destroted' Doctor Who were the BBC schedulers and Jonathan Powell.

I think JNT did a good job overall. Yeah, there were a few duds but name one era of Who that doesn't have a few.

If anyting I think the press completely misreported the whole affair, blaming Michael Grade for its cancellation.

The show destroyed itself, CB and SM's tenures were painful to watch and such a fall from the heights of TB at his best.

Star Wars killed Doctor Who for the same reason that Dallas killed Crossroads and Miami Vice killed Z Cars.

Let's all look forward to the next 50yrs of Doctor Who.

From what I've read, the papers were very much behind the show when the hiatus was announced in 1985. I think they backed a few campaigns to save it.

When the show was cancelled in 1989, it seems the attitude was that the show had had it's day, it had been in decline with the ratings and not such a fuss was made.

For me, the real culprit was Michael Grade. Had he not suspended the show, I think it would have lasted. The ratings were not too bad for Season 22, it had had an average audience of 7.2 million. It then came back 18 months later and it averaged at 4.8 million for Season 23. The hiatus therefore had an adverse affect on the ratings.

Off course, the show itself didn't help with the silliness of Seasons 24 and 25. If Season 26 had come first in McCoy's Era, it may also have survived but by the time it was broadcast it was too late.

So no, the press weren't really to blame, there were other factors.

Good point there! UK TV could not afford such Sci-Fi or drama in those days compared to the American market.
By then, Doctor Who was probably given a budget of less than poor Crossroads!
The media had nothing to do with it IMO. It was all to do with the 'fat cats' in the BBC (who never watched TV). They put Doctor Who against Coronation St - and HEY PRESTO! "Let's get rid of it!"
Admittedly, I'd given up on DW myself by then - but was sad that my childhood series had ended.
The media were nothing like they are today!

That's how I see it. People forget that back then a household would normally have only one proper telly (black and white portable with dodgy aerials being the possible second one). The moment the schedulers put Who up against "Mum's programme" on ITV it was only ever going to tank in the ratings.

Star Wars, Indiana Jones and a handful of incredibly good films in the late 70's/early 80's raised the bar for cinema and TV to a whole new level. We'd had some god-awful dreary crud since the 60's on TV and at the pictures and the whole visual entertainment industry was dead on it's feet. Suddenly, we got this bunch of young directors like Spielberg, Lucas, John Hughes and John Carpenter who rescued Hollywood with a string of classic movies.

It took British TV a long, long time to recognise this - we were still waiting 3-5 years to see a blockbuster on TV and making-do with wobbly sets, laughable effects and - frankly - terrible acting.

It was really the availability of cost-effective, cinema-quality CGI coupled with Britain having some of the most talented backroom boys in the world that made it possible for the BBC to go head to head with the US networks.

The other big factor was the technology available in the home. The rise of popularity of DVDs made high-quality, high-budget TV much more viable - especially for the BBC. American shows were already flying off the shelves - boxed sets of series like Charmed were selling for anything upto £60 a season - incredibly lucrative. That also made it possible to sell shows in countries where network airing wasn't available.

Even so, it took years of work in the background from RTD, Gatiss and others to convince the BBC that DW could return IF it was given a workable budget. Regardless of what anyone thinks of their writing or other involvement, every DW fan owes a debt of thanks to them for doing what we all wished we could do and beating the BBC execs over the head until they realised that people really would watch Doctor Who if it was available.

Given that Miami Vice started on TV over 5 years after Z Cars finished that is rather improbable.

And Star Wars was made 9 years before the last series of DW in the original run just as Dallas started 10 years before the last episode of Crossroads in the original run.

I just thought it easier to use "Miami Vice" as a simple shorthand for flashy, high-budget American TV cops making our home-grown, dull, grey output. It didn't really seem worthwhile checking broadcast dates since we were actually talking about Doctor Who and I was suggesting a principle rather than trying to prove it as an absolute fact.

I was flippant and light-hearted with facts that - let's be honest - make no flaming difference to the point of the discussion at hand. It did, however, illustrate the point well enough for other members to understand and reply.

I promise, if I ever get the urge to post on a Miami Vice forum, I'll be very sure to focus my attention on that show.

Not quite true. No fuss was made, not because everyone considered that the show had 'had its day', but because it was never cancelled; no announcement was ever made. The BBC wanted it gone and had already failed to cancel it once due to resistance from the public so they buried it opposite Coronation Street for three years and then simply didn't recommission it or point out publicly that they hadn't done so. By the time the casual viewers noticed it hadn't returned, they'd already half forgotten it. Very clever, and sneaky.

Yes. The public as a collective have a short attention span, it appears.

I've seen some interviews with JNT where he says that he wanted to leave but was persuaded to stay as I guess the BBC couldn't find a suitable replacement, so I guess it's not really his fault either that he perhaps stayed on a couple of years longer than he should have...

Not so much persuaded as ordered to stay. They told him he would be allowed to move on if he sacked Colin Baker, then went back on that.

I honestly don't think you can point to a single factor and say "That's the reason". It was really a mix of scheduling, the tone of the show, the BBC themselves not really backing it properly, budget and a whole host more. I would like to throw one other thing into the mix that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Star Trek

More specificaly Star Trek: The Next Generation. The pilot episode aired on the same day as the final episode of Time and the Rani (granted in different countries). When you compare the two the difference is almost comical. Who was, well, a typical British sci-fi show with wobbly sets and ambitions that far outstripped the budget. TNG had a huge budget and, as a result, effects work and production values that wouldn't be entirely out of place on a movie screen at that time.

TNG was a sign that American TV was about to get serious about sci-fi and, when it was succesful, the writing was kinda on the wall. When you look at the long list of sci-fi / fantasy shows that came out in the late 80's and 90's it's hard to imagine the BBC being able to keep Who relevant even if they'd wanted to. TNG, DS9, Farscape, Babylon 5, X-Files, Buffy... the list just goes on and on and most of them made their way to British terrestrial TV in way or another.

Which leads to the other interesting theory - if Who had been kept going would it have survived the 90's? I'm not so sure it would as the audience then was spoilt for choice and unless some sort of co-production deal (like the TV Movie 'enjoyed' for instance) was put in place it's really hard to see how Who could have stood out. Ironicaly of course by bringing it back when they did the BBC have the double advantage of CGI now being (somewhat) affordable and the TV sci-fi landscape being a lot less cluttered than it was a decade earlier. In the long run being put on hiatus might have been the best thing that ever happened to the show...

That is true Tony, I think it's a bit of both what I said and what you have put above. All important factors.

Reading though my handbooks as I do for info on stuff like this, I see another media related reason for the show's demise is the lack of coverage the show got. According to the 7th Doctor Handbook, the Radio Times hardly gave it any publicity and a press call to promote the 26th Series failed to generate much interest.

Some good points raised by tingramretro and daveyboy. I think JNT has been to a large extent unfairly blaimed for the shows demise. It was a combination of things that led to this stage. Michael Grade for one was dead against the show, the casting od Sylvester was not universaly welcomed, the stupid placings of "guest"stars reeked of desperatiom. There were some good stories to be told but somehow the whole thing seemed to have lost momentum. Daft schehduling didn't help either. I don't think you can blame what the press have always loved to describe as "wobbly sets" as they were few and far between.

According to some who worked on the show, the lack of promotion was quite deliberate. Like the scheduling post 1986, it was designed to allow the show to fade out of the public consciousness without provoking a reaction like the one to the 1985 attempt at cancellation.

Barry Letts got very upset at the press using the cliche of 'wobbly sets'. He took great pains to point out that, during his time at least, these did not exist.

Surely it was The Sweeney that killed Z Cars

Yes, but Doctor Who was able to regenerate!

Knowing Regan and Carter, I certainly wouldn't have put it past them. Pair of thugs.