r/gallifrey
Is there a good reason classic who isn't on iPlayer?
I think the fact that it's listed under 'stream every episode' is quite misleading. Silent Witness h...
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/z77lko/is_there_a_good_reason_classic_who_isnt_on_iplayer/
gsam2021
28/11/2022·r/gallifrey
Photo by Jeremy bishop on Unsplash
I think the fact that it's listed under 'stream every episode' is quite misleading. Silent Witness has every episode since 1996, why can't doctor who have all the old ones? Why does it have to be on britbox?
TonksMoriarty
I can understand why "stream every episode" to us superfans seems a little misleading, but EVERYONE from Wikipedia, IMDb, and the BBC themselves, treat Classic and Revival as functionally two seperate shows with a shared lineage.
In the early era of the Revival they even had two completely different subsites on the BBC website.
SexySnorlax1
Wikipedia treats it as one show. The episode list is split into two pages, but it's done in the same way as other long-running shows like SNL or The Simpsons.
MonrealEstate
We acting like Wiki is the go for all knowledge now
Go to "List of Episodes" there's two seperate lists pages.
Zealousideal_Law1152
Which is fair game, seeing as they *are* separate shows and it's only the fandom that seems convinced otherwise.
J-McFox
Well the show had a 50th anniversary special in 2013 and is having another anniversary special next year, suggesting the BBC also considers them to be a single entity.
ZERO_ninja
> EVERYONE from Wikipedia
I actually remember when Wikipedia split up the episode lists. It was actually not long before Twice Upon a Time that then opened saying "709 episodes ago" and showing footage form The Tenth Planet which I thought was quite ironic given the timing.
Supertrinko
I was just trying to find the old page (since nothing is deleted from version history), couldn't find it. Was wondering if I was being mandela'd.
Brickie78
Let's face it, 26 years' worth of Classic Who is worth a bit to the consumer. Hundreds of pounds, maybe thousands, to buy them all on DVD/Blu-ray. It's a valuable asset that the BBC owns, and in an era when the government keeps talking about defunding it, abolishing the license fee etc, they have to make the most of the assets they have.
And, I'm 44 and not a penny of my license fee has ever gone to making Classic Who, because I was 11 when it was cancelled.
Yeah, it'd be great if it was on iPlayer but I get why not.
You could make the same argument about NuWho - why put it on iPlayer for free when you could be flogging it on DVD/Blu-ray?
javalib
Except some of the current license fee is going to NuWho. If our license fee goes into making the show, and it also gives us access to iPlayer - why should we have to pay again to watch it.
Also, it's been there since iPlayer launched, and is way more popular than Classic Who, I'm willing to bet there'd be a bit of a stink if they pulled it and put it on a premium service.
amazingmikeyc
>Let's face it, 26 years' worth of Classic Who is worth a bit to the consumer.
i think you're underestimating how much the average dude cares about 50 year old TV
Unable_Earth5914
I subscribe to BritBox just for Classic Who. It's got loads of other great stuff but I didn't know that when I signed up. They've definitely made some money out of me by now
So it won't matter to them if it's on iPlayer either.
> i think you're underestimating how much the average dude cares about 50 year old TV
Presumably you mean overestimating.
Maybe, but it is a "Cult Classic" with a reasonably-sized fanbase in a way that, to use OP's original example, Silent Witness isn't.
PeterchuMC
Basically, Britbox was originally the only way to stream Classic Who in the US and once it was brought to the UK that quality was retained.
Wonder whether classic is going be on Disney+ as well… I just feel like there's no reason it shouldn't be on iplayer
DoctorWhoSeason24
It won't. In fact, all news articles talking about the deal only mention that Disney+ will have the "new" seasons, so I'm not even too sure if the pre-Fourteenth Doctor seasons will be in the service, at least initially.
Apprehensive_Tea4048
Quoted from a similar post a couple years back:
>Because BBC iPlayer doesn't contain a full selection of all of the BBC's archive
>Arguably it should, but it's a little more complicated that that. Classic Who costs a lot to restore and master. And those funds come from home video sales/streaming deals, not from the BBC. While the license fee payer would have paid for their initial production, their restoration was a private endeavor
>Because of this they can't just stick everything they have online for free. They're not just making money with an already finished product. The 'Classic Series' as a product continues to have production costs. Though to be fair the Classic Series has had some absolutely amazing work done on it over the years. So I think most people are still happy to pay for it
>It's not all down to greed
the (other) big reason they don't do it is that have to pay repeat fees and/or renegotiate contracts that don't mention streaming.
I agree that ideally the BBC, being a publically owned, public service company should just make everything it's ever made avaialbe for every UK person for ever. After all, we've already paid for it. But that's not how it works, and it definitely doesn't work for really old shows where contracts expected they would be shown twice and then binned; the performers get repeat fees, so it costs the BBC to show them again. They have to negotiate a one-off fee with them to put them on iplayer. (I may be wrong but this is one reason why the BBC aways show Dad's Army; everyone is dead and/or paid off so the repeats are cheaper)
Money and contracts.
Old BBC contracts require all performers (and some of the crew) to get a residual fee every time it's shown, so if it's on iPlayer permanently they need to buy out everyone involved. independent productions will have different rules, and there's probably loopholes and stuff, but the tldr; is that they have to ask everyone that's ever been in the Dr Who and pay them off and that's a lot of work.
adpirtle
BBC treat them as different shows with different licensing deals. Personally, since I'm American and cannot use iPlayer, I'm quite happy to have them on Britbox, but I can understand why a British audience member might want them on iPlayer, since your TV license fee already paid for them.
DrWhoFanJ
Because the BBC were explicitly told of OFCOM that them having all the (surviving) content they've ever made would completely stifle even the idea of market competition.
yeah those rulings were frustrating and very parochial. there was one 10 years ago about how BBC and ITV wanted to create a kind of super-iplayer but weren't allowed… but Ofcom were thinking Locally but the BBC and ITV were looking at Netflix & Prime Video and the power and money of the big american media companies and realising that's who they're competing with not, I dunno, Challenge.
J-Ganon
Same reason Classic Eastenders isn't I suspect…and there's no good explanation for it
there is! they have to pay repeat fees
Is that why they don't have all old EastEnders on BritBox?
MrBobaFett
Licensing?
SquintyBrock
Because money
Well, assuming the options are:
Put Classic on iPlayer, and everyone who wants to watch it will watch it. Most people will be paying their license fee already, so from them they earn nothing, but maybe some people will start paying just to (legally) watch Classic Who.
Keep it off iPlayer, and those who want to watch it will either pay for BluRays, DVDs, sign up to BritBox to watch it, etc., or not bother and lose interest.
So the question for the BBC is, is the crowd of people who will pay for Classic Who directly a bigger crowd than those who will pay their license fee solely because Classic Who is on iPlayer? Considering they're actively producing new content for box set releases in 2022, I think it's probably a bit more lucrative than we all think.
Is it greed? I don't know if that's fair. It's not like when I pay my license fee any of that money goes to Classic Who. It could go towards the restorations that go into the collection sets, and then they could put those on iPlayer, but considering they sell well enough to be reprinted as it is, I don't think that would make much business sense, and it would result in less money spread across the rest of the BBC.
YetAnotherRPoster1
>It's not like when I pay my license fee any of that money goes to Classic Who
… classic who was payed for by license fee money.
Ah, key word in that quote of mine you're being snarky about would probably be my.
That being said, it does raise a decent point, if the public paid for it, does it matter that the public has changed?
I suppose it's possible that continued sales of Classic Who through distribution rights, home media, and now streaming rights might have taken a few pence off the license fee that we pay now. I don't know enough about BBC funding to know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me terribly.
Bass1joe
Classic Who is still stuck in the time vortex. The Third Doctor forgot to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and each doctor after just hasn't bother or cared to fix it just like the Chameleon Circuit on the TARDIS.
Fishb20
Tale as old as time: a public broadcaster makes a show successful and a cultural icon, a private company gets the rights and "fixes production issues" and puts it behind a paywall
Carroll_RI
Because they sell it on BritBox