Sorry, that won't do. You clearly did not understand what you were talking about and spare me your attempt at a wisecracking reply especially as your initial comment was plainly wrong.

Your principle, like your timeline, is completeley incorrect. American shows did not finish some of their British counterparts, clearly as many shows carried on and thrived alongside their American counterparts.

Juliet Bravo managed 6 years as the successor to Z Cars, not bad going, The Bill ran for years, soaps like Corrie, Emmerdale and Eastenders thrive to this day. Crossroads died for very specific reasons and the slow death started when Noele Gordon left.

Casualty has been running for years.

Shows that were old and tired and were losing viewers got canned. That is all there was to it. Dr Who fitted the bill and JNT was a major contributor to its decline.

Buck Rogers could have killed off Doctor Who due to the ratings hammering in season 18. It was glitzy, flashy, glossy and everything that Star Wars was. Within a few years Doctor Who was still there and Buck Rogers was dead.

That is not 'all there was to it', as several people have pointed out. The facts are there, easily obtainable, whether you choose to ignore them or not.
And being made by JNT...

Excellent post, to pick out certain programmes demise and use American programmes as the reason, whilst ignoring the fact that plenty of other programmes weren't cancelled, is a very poor arguement IMO.....

JNT must take a proportion of the blame. After the "cancellation" in 1985, how on earth did he manage to produce a series as poor as The Trial of A Timelord? And then the following season was even worse. Things did pick up in the following two years, but by then the damage had been done.

Totally agree. And the original poster's comment about the lack of British acting talent is way off the mark as well.

Yes, JNT must take a share of some of the things that went wrong in the late 80's, but I still wouldn't put the whole blame totally at his door.

Though the violence in Season 22 was agreeably excessive, I think it was just used as an excuse by Michael Grade to suspend the show. The guy was lucky. He was given his chance to suspend the show thanks to decisions made by JNT and the fact that at the time The Sixth Doctor was not as popular as we now perceive him to be today.

I'm convinced if Season 22 had been a less violent Season and been more along the lines of the Davison Era, it would have made it harder for Michael Grade to suspend the show but I'm sure he would have found a way to do it eventually.

What, exactly, did go 'wrong'? As I said earlier, people were still watching and enjoying the show until the BBC started mucking about with the schedules. JNT had nothing to do with that!
But Colin was popular. He certainly wasn't unpopular. He was in demand for charity appearances and TV spots throughout his tenure.
But nobody outside the BBC, aside from the usual suspects from the NVLA, thought it was too violent! That had nothing to do with Grade suspending the show, it was just one of a number of excuses he came up with.

Sorry Tony, what I meant was and didn't explain very well was that the decisions that were taken that were wrong, like the Sixth Doctor's costume, giving him a crap first story etc. Those sort of decisions that were wrong.

What I was trying to say that Grade was just lucky that the show was drawing attention because of it's violence and I do recall at the time there were several people complaining about Colin Baker's Doctor. Grade had all these elements put on a plate for him to help suspend the show. I don't think he would have gotten away with it so easily if Peter Davison had still been The Doctor at the time.

Look at the quality of the writing, direction, production and acting of DW circa 1975 (Terror of The Zygons, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars) and compare that to those seen in 1985 (Attack Of The Cybermen, The Mark Of The Rani, Timelash).

In 10 years the show had become a sad parody of itself, it was a slow and painful fall from grace, and I for one saw it's cancellation in 1989 as a form of blessed relief, as the show had gone from my favourite, must see programme to a bit of an embarrassment.

Shameless Davison praising

Not at all!

It's well known Michael Grade had a grudge against Colin Baker, I think the fact he was The Doctor when Grade took the decision was a big factor in that decision.

How about the fan press? I've seen some criticism of DWB, for its very aggressive
anti-JNT stance ("JNT MUST GO NOW!" headline ) . "The Handbook" by Howe Stammers and Walker notes that several newspapers used to go to DWB for "the more sensationalist coverage of the series" (p. 775).

Wasn't the real reason for the suspension because the BBC wanted the cash to build Albert Square. Or is that just a rumour?

No, I think part of the reason Who was suspended was because "Eastenders" needed to be funded (EE was also
meant to fend off Thatcher-government accusations
that the BBC was "elitist" and "out of touch" with the
British public).

DWB at that time seemed to be run by people who absolutely hated Doctor Who, and would have done whoever was in charge. Whatever was on screen was inevitably nowhere near as good as it was five or ten years previously; in fact, Doctor Who had been crap ever since Hinchcliffe left. And yet curiously, when Hinchcliffe was in, he and Holmes were in, they were ruining the show which had been perfect under Letts and Dicks. That was the mentality of those kinds of fans at the time. And because almost none of the older stuff was commercially available, people had no way of disputing them.


True. Though East Enders actually started before the 1985 season of Who ended.

The start of Breakfast TV on BBC 1 also had an impact on things as well, according to the Sixth Doctor Handbook.

I'd suggest timing didn't help matters. A huge audience grew up with Baker and Davidson. When it got to McCoy a proportion of that audience had moved into their teens and lost interest and they hadn't then grabbed the younger ones. There was no way you were going to get to watch a programme up against Coronation street at a time of night when many families were still gathered round their one TV, as was still the case in the 80s. That was the worst thing they could've done to it.

That was certainly the case with me. In my mid teens in the mid 80s, a 14/15 year old girl is moving away from something like Doctor Who anyway, but had it been in it's old slot I'd have watched it however I had no chance on a weeknight schedule.

I would say this was 75% of the reason the viewing figures dropped away after 1986. And it was a deliberate move, intended to achieve just that.

Moving the series opposite Coronation Street was just plain stupid. As another posted has already said, in those days most households only had one TV and if Mummy and daddy wanted to watch the street then Dr Who fans had no chance. No wonder ratings fell. Mind you the beeb seem to be messing around with the present series timings as well.

I've never read that. How did they say it impacted?

Ordered to stay? Was JNT sold into slavery at the BBC? Unless an employee has a contract which requires them to work for a set minimum term, no employer can 'order' them to stay after they have resigned. JNT chose to stay.

Of course, back in the 80s, Producers were employed 'in-house' by the BBC and could move from project to project. It seems JNT was told that he wouldn't be offered any BBC productions other than Doctor Who. So he decided to stick with his only option to remain a BBC Producer, rather than take his chances finding work with an independent programme maker.

Hopefully Ting will have specific detail but I can say that it is quite common in "showbiz" for contracts to be written around future output rather than just a period of time.

Actors, for example, may be contracted to appear in three programmes - not specific ones, just three projects that may not even have been dreamed up yet. (That was also the reason why Prince changed his name a few years back - he accused his record company of committing slavery because he was contracted to them and unable to leave or record without their permission - George Michael had similar compaints).

I'm not saying this applied in this particular case - just illustrating that contracted terms in the entertainment industry are not quite the same as in other sectors.

I seem to recall JNT was on a fixed term contract with the BBC, so he would not have been able to simply quit. The BBC also made it plain to him that if he did leave, they would not appoint a new producer; they would simply cancel the show. He was in an impossible position, and was treated disgracefully.

In JNT's case, there were no other projects for him at the BBC. It seems his options were Doctor Who or nothing.
It must have been a ten-year contract, seeing as he stayed for at least three years after sacking Colin.

And wasn't he paid to just sit in the production office and twiddle his thumbs (aside from producing the odd direct-to-video compilation) for a couple of years after the show ended?

What was their problem?

Did they have personal issues with him - cos it seems that they could have simply dropped the program if they really wanted to and threatening to close a project he wouldn't even be involved in if he left doesn't sound like much leverage - apart from possibly pulling at his heartstrings if he was seriously dedicated to his staff.