Some of the stories that were repeated on BBC1 - or suggested for repeats - in the 1960s and 70s. Clockwise from top: Carole Ann Ford as Susan and William Russell as Ian in An Unearthly Child (1963); Victoria (Deborah Watling) and Jamie (Frazer Hines) in The Evil of the Daleks (1967); the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo (Katy Manning) in Planet of the Daleks (1973); the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Davros (Michael Wisher) in Genesis of the Daleks (1975); Professor Marius (Frederick Jaeger) and the Doctor in The Invisible Enemy (1977); and the Doctor, Cordo (Roy Macready) and Mandrel (William Simons) in The Sun Makers (1977).
In the 1960s and 70s, the BBC’s Doctor Who repeats were always selected from a pool of recently transmitted stories. There were good reasons for this. The gentleman’s agreement between the BBC and Equity, the actor’s union, meant that only a small number of programmes could be repeated during any given year. More importantly, most of the programmes that were repeated had to be less than two years old, with a subclause of the agreement stating that a grand total of just 26 older-than-that programmes could be repeated on each BBC channel during the year.
When it came to Doctor Who, there was another limiting factor. An unwritten rule enforced by the programme’s production office meant that repeats always had to feature the current incarnation of the Doctor.