<P> Doctor Who first appeared on BBC TV at 17 : 16 : 20 GMT on Saturday , 23 November 1963 ; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time , due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous day . It was to be a regular weekly programme , each episode 25 minutes of transmission length . Discussions and plans for the programme had been in progress for a year . The head of drama Sydney Newman was mainly responsible for developing the programme , with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the head of the script department ( later head of serials ) Donald Wilson and staff writer C.E. Webber . Writer Anthony Coburn , story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series . The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience , as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history . On 31 July 1963 Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants . As originally written , the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors . When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any `` bug - eyed monsters '' . According to producer Verity Lambert ; `` We did n't have a lot of choice -- we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald ( Wilson ) was so adamant that we should n't make it . Had we had anything else ready we would have made that . '' Nation 's script became the second Doctor Who serial -- The Daleks ( a.k.a. The Mutants ) . The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series ' most popular monsters , and was responsible for the BBC 's first merchandising boom . </P>
<P> Doctor Who first appeared on BBC TV at 17 : 16 : 20 GMT on Saturday , 23 November 1963 ; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time , due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous day . It was to be a regular weekly programme , each episode 25 minutes of transmission length . Discussions and plans for the programme had been in progress for a year . The head of drama Sydney Newman was mainly responsible for developing the programme , with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the head of the script department ( later head of serials ) Donald Wilson and staff writer C.E. Webber . Writer Anthony Coburn , story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series . The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience , as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history . On 31 July 1963 Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants . As originally written , the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors . When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any `` bug - eyed monsters '' . According to producer Verity Lambert ; `` We did n't have a lot of choice -- we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald ( Wilson ) was so adamant that we should n't make it . Had we had anything else ready we would have made that . '' Nation 's script became the second Doctor Who serial -- The Daleks ( a.k.a. The Mutants ) . The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series ' most popular monsters , and was responsible for the BBC 's first merchandising boom . </P>
when was the first episode of doctor who aired
when was the first episode of doctor who aired
17 : 16 : 20 GMT on Saturday , 23 November 1963
17 : 16 : 20 GMT on Saturday , 23 November 1963