In 1965 Doctor Who was a consistent ratings winner in the BBC’s diverse portfolio of shows. ITV worked hard to steal audiences back…

By ANDREW PIXLEY

Independent Television is  launching its first Saturday tea-time science-fiction thriller to win viewers from the BBC’s space series Dr Who,” reported Brian Dean of the Daily Mail on Tuesday 21 September 1965. “The hour-long series, Lost in Space, will be screened directly opposite Dr Who… by ABC, the ITV Northern and Midlands company, and most of the regional networks from early next month.

The Hollywood-made series is expected to be screened in the London area later next year.” 

The previous day, ABC’s programme controller Brian Tesler had commented, “I’m sure this new series will be an absolute winner. It can’t miss.”

Lavishly shot on 35mm film, with state-of-the-art visual effects and miniature work that equalled any movie venture, Lost in Space chronicled the Robinson family’s space-colonising odyssey in the year 1997. Each episode cost around $130,000 – a fortune compared to the £3,000 (maximum) allocated to each largely videotaped half-hour adventure experienced by the TARDIS travellers.

With state-of-the-art visual effects and miniature work that equalled any movie, Lost in Space chronicled the Robinson family’s space-colonising odyssey.

However, the dangers encountered by the Robinsons – plus stowaway saboteur Dr Zachary Smith and their B-9 robot (“Warning! Warning!”) – turned out to have been a miss, if the industry charts compiled by Television Audience Measurement (TAM) are anything to go by. While Doctor Who was shown all over the United Kingdom, Lost in Space fell foul of regionalisation – the curse of commercial television.

D uring the 1960s, the Independent Television network was a collection of regional companies, competing not only with the BBC but also each other to get their programmes networked – ie, seen nationally on a simultaneous-showings basis. Fifteen broadcasters controlled 14 territories, each offering a slightly different schedule. As such, when Lost in Space began at 5.15pm on Saturday 2 October – about half an hour before the Doctor, Steven and Vicki concluded their Galaxy 4 adventure – it did so only for those tuned to ABC (North and Midlands at weekends), Southern, Westward (South West), Channel (as in Islands), Tyne Tees (North East), Border (the Scottish-English divide), Grampian (the Highlands), TWW (West and Wales) and Teledu Cymru (North Wales).