MARCUS HEARN
Pages from the merchandise supplement that appeared in the campaign book for Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965).
In 1965, BBC Television Enterprises issued licences for merchandise based on such diverse productions as Z Cars, That Was the Week That Was, and Steptoe and Son. The biggest property by far, however, was Doctor Who. Or, more specifically, the Daleks. That summer saw a craze that briefly rivalled Beatlemania, with 34 companies holding licences to produce 63 types of Dalek merchandise. By June, one of those licensees – the Louis Marx company – had sold half a million battery-operated Daleks and a million of its miniature Dalek Rolykins. Merchandise licensing was relatively new territory for Television Enterprises, a department that was created just five years earlier to sell BBC programmes to foreign broadcasters. Key figures included Head of Business John Grove, his assistant Roy Williams, and merchandising assistant Ann Fitch. The overnight success of the Daleks in early 1964 took them all by surprise, but they quickly adapted with the help of licensing consultant Walter Tuckwell and writers’ agent Beryl Vertue, whose company Associated London Scripts represented Dalek creator Terry Nation.