in black and white. It's like reviewing a mono version of a stereo record." It was the Beatles' first critical failure. The film had a repeated showing on 5 January 1968, this time broadcast in colour, on BBC2, but there were only about 200,000 colour TV receivers in the UK at the time. As a result of the unfavourable reviews, networks in the US declined to show the film there. Beatles aide Peter Brown blamed McCartney for its failure. Brown said that during a private screening for NEMS management staff, the reaction had been "unanimous ... it was awful", yet McCartney was convinced that the film would be warmly received, and ignored Brown's advice to scrap the project and save the band from embarrassment. On 27 December, McCartney appeared on ITV's The David Frost Programme to defend the film. He was introduced by David Frost as the "man most responsible" for Magical Mystery Tour. Hunter Davies, the Beatles' official biographer at the time, said: "It was the first time in memory that any artist felt obliged to make a public apology for his work." McCartney later spoke to the press, saying: "We don't say it was a good film. It was our first attempt. If we goofed, then we goofed. It was a challenge and it didn't come off. We'll know better next time." He also said, "I mean, you couldn't call the Queen's speech a gas, either, could you?" Writing in 1981, sociomusicologist Simon Frith said that the film was symptomatic of the transformation of "pop" into "rock", the latter being concerned with art and self-expression over mass entertainment. He described Magical Mystery Tour as "a willfully inexplicable TV special which put most of the audience to sleep" and added: "The Beatles were no longer in control of their time. Whereas they had once been able to seize on any idea and 'Beatlefy' it, make it common currency, they were now running vainly after a trend that was determined to leave the common audience behind." Magical Mystery Tour had its first US presentation at the Fillmore East in New York City on 11 August 1968, shown at 8 and 10 pm, as part of a fundraiser for the Liberation News Service. It was not seen in commercial theatres in the US until 1974, when New Line Cinema acquired the rights for limited theatrical and non-theatrical distribution. McCartney later said