"The Avengers" - UK repeat data 1964-1976

[Elle]

I just wanted to say what a fantastic body of data these repeat screenings notes are! This fills in a lot of gaps in my knowledge and reminds me of repeat screenings in the London area back in the '60s and early '70s. While The Avengers was still an ongoing show, Rediffusion routinely mixed repeats in with new episodes when there was a need (I can recall series 4 repeats regularly interspercing new series 5 episodes, for instance) which, to a kid at the time, gave the show an on-screen presence for a large part of the year. It also gave the impression that there were more episodes than there actually were and it was only in later years when I was able to read episode guides that I realised there was a finite number of them! I'm now able to make sense of what I saw back then though, which is fascinating.

Anyway, I can't imagine how many hours of work this research took but it will come in very useful in years to come! So thanks for undertaking it, Andrew!

[Andrew Pixley]

I just wanted to say what a fantastic body of data these repeat screenings notes are!

Delighted that you''ve found it of interest... and that it was a good idea to get it off the hard drive where it was doing very little...

This fills in a lot of gaps in my knowledge and reminds me of repeat screenings in the London area back in the '60s and early '70s. While The Avengers was still an ongoing show, Rediffusion routinely mixed repeats in with new episodes when there was a need (I can recall series 4 repeats regularly interspercing new series 5 episodes, for instance) which, to a kid at the time, gave the show an on-screen presence for a large part of the year.

I think repeats are a major part of the story in terms of any series... and an element that's so often over-looked. Because their deployment amidst first run does create a very different memory, a different feeling, compared to the one that we often get from tabulated premiere dates. The extension of the first batch of colour episodes with re-runs of the monochrome filmed shows in London (and, indeed, the repeat of "The Cybernauts" during the problematic Easter weekend) would create a very different impression of "The Avengers" from early 1967 - effectively extending that 16-show first season out into almost a full six months with a shorter summer break before the remainder of the colour Mrs Peel shows in the autumn.

Mixing in repeats (more common with US network shows, especially from around Christmas) was a ploy used with some other film series. There's a period from February to June 1967 where ATV in the Midlands is effectively alternating new colour episodes of "The Saint" with monochrome repeats on Friday nights because the broadcasts were starting to catch up with the two-week turnaround in production.

And the other neat thing is that these groupings again make us question how the episodes are batched together, and other ways of looking at how we regard the shows. I mean, what's accepted as 'Series Two' and 'Series Three' is, effectively, one run of 52 shows made effectively non-stop on a vaguely fortnightly basis for two years, yet we've always generally accepted that it's two batches of 26 because that's how most regions screened it. When you get to the nominal 24 colour episodes of 'Series Five', this was usually broken down into a 16 and then an 8 (clearly separated by minor formatting differences)... but this wasn't the case in all regions, with others having patterns such as 12 episodes then 4 episodes and then 8 episodes a year later. Or in the US where you have the last batch of colour Mrs Peel episodes bolted onto the front of the first batch of Tara King episodes (with, of course, networked reruns along the way as well). It's all so wonderfully fluid, and I always find it fascinating to understand these differences and imagine how it felt as a viewer.

It also gave the impression that there were more episodes than there actually were and it was only in later years when I was able to read episode guides that I realised there was a finite number of them! I'm now able to make sense of what I saw back then though, which is fascinating.

I am so glad that other people get this too! Bless you for taking the time and trouble to comment! :)

Anyway, I can't imagine how many hours of work this research took but it will come in very useful in years to come! So thanks for undertaking it, Andrew!

Not as many hours as you might think to be honest... it was a primarily data exercise in looking at handwritten notes that I'd made since the late 1970s, putting them in a spreadsheet, and then using electronic resources to determine other broadcasts, use the sorting properties of simple databases to identify anomalies and gaps, and then to do a bit of manual investigation to infill the gaps and study the anomalies. It was a worthwhile exercise to prove the theory and how quickly such data could be assembled... but it had no home. Until now.

Delighted that it was of use! Personal memories are one of the most important things about all these studies... and often the hardest to evoke and communicate. Hurrah! :)

All the best

Andrew

[Elle]

I think repeats are a major part of the story in terms of any series... and an element that's so often over-looked. Because their deployment amidst first run does create a very different memory, a different feeling, compared to the one that we often get from tabulated premiere dates. The extension of the first batch of colour episodes with re-runs of the monochrome filmed shows in London (and, indeed, the repeat of "The Cybernauts" during the problematic Easter weekend) would create a very different impression of "The Avengers" from early 1967 - effectively extending that 16-show first season out into almost a full six months with a shorter summer break before the remainder of the colour Mrs Peel shows in the autumn.

Mixing in repeats (more common with US network shows, especially from around Christmas) was a ploy used with some other film series. There's a period from February to June 1967 where ATV in the Midlands is effectively alternating new colour episodes of "The Saint" with monochrome repeats on Friday nights because the broadcasts were starting to catch up with the two-week turnaround in production.

And the other neat thing is that these groupings again make us question how the episodes are batched together, and other ways of looking at how we regard the shows. I mean, what's accepted as 'Series Two' and 'Series Three' is, effectively, one run of 52 shows made effectively non-stop on a vaguely fortnightly basis for two years, yet we've always generally accepted that it's two batches of 26 because that's how most regions screened it. When you get to the nominal 24 colour episodes of 'Series Five', this was usually broken down into a 16 and then an 8 (clearly separated by minor formatting differences)... but this wasn't the case in all regions, with others having patterns such as 12 episodes then 4 episodes and then 8 episodes a year later. Or in the US where you have the last batch of colour Mrs Peel episodes bolted onto the front of the first batch of Tara King episodes (with, of course, networked reruns along the way as well). It's all so wonderfully fluid, and I always find it fascinating to understand these differences and imagine how it felt as a viewer.

I am so glad that other people get this too! Bless you for taking the time and trouble to comment!

Not as many hours as you might think to be honest... it was a primarily data exercise in looking at handwritten notes that I'd made since the late 1970s, putting them in a spreadsheet, and then using electronic resources to determine other broadcasts, use the sorting properties of simple databases to identify anomalies and gaps, and then to do a bit of manual investigation to infill the gaps and study the anomalies. It was a worthwhile exercise to prove the theory and how quickly such data could be assembled... but it had no home. Until now.

Delighted that it was of use! Personal memories are one of the most important things about all these studies... and often the hardest to evoke and communicate. Hurrah!

Yes, you get a whole different story by looking at the repeat data. 1967 and 1968 seemed to me at the time to be a period when The Avengers was on perpetually (which pleased me no end, being a big fan). Even though it was still only seen in b/w, I was aware which series was which due to the different title sequences. But without home video of any kind, you didn't get to see even your absolute favourite episodes that often - only when the TV company would choose to repeat them! So a lot of the details of the stories were a bit unclear or even mixed with one another. A few stood out as exceptional and I was always on the lookout for the repeat of them (e.g. House That Jack Built, The Cybernauts etc).

I must admit, I wasn't even aware that there were two shooting blocks for series 5. When the second batch was shown later in 1967, even though they seemed unfamiliar to me, I probably assumed they'd already been shown earlier in the year but I'd somehow missed them!

Personal memories always give the whole experience three dimensions though, so it's a valuable thing to be able to call all of that up!

[Elle]

As a footnote to my other post, it's really fascinating to see how The Avengers fared in all the other ITV regions. A totally different experience depending on where you lived at the time! It's fun to compare notes.