Space: 1999 - Broadcast History

Broadcast History

The series premiered in September 1975, nearly two years after the start of production. In the United Kingdom, the series was originally seen on ITV stations but was not simulcast nationally (this remained the case until a repeat airing on BBC2 in 1998-1999). Most ITV regions (including Yorkshire, Grampian, Ulster, Scottish, Border, ATV, and Tyne Tees) premiered the series on Thursday, 4 September 1975 in a 7.00pm slot. The London and Anglia regions screened the first episode two days later on Saturday 6 September at 5.50pm (scheduling it directly against the BBC's Doctor Who). The Granada region began showing the series on Friday, 26 September 1975, initially at 7.35pm before moving to 6.35pm a few weeks later. The HTV region did not begin showing the series until October 1975, again in an early Friday evening slot. However, within a few weeks, the series was scheduled differently at most ITV stations.

The premiere screenings in the London and Anglia regions were opposite the second episode of the 13th season of BBC1's perennial sci-fi series Doctor Who, and although the ratings for the second episode of Terror of the Zygons fell by 2.3 million viewers from the first episode of the story, the audience response was such that while Doctor Who's ratings for the season recovered almost immediately with the third episode of the story and continued to increase and climbed to well over 12 million, its commercial rival's audience fell.

In the United States, efforts to sell the series to one of the three networks for the 1974-1975 or 1975-1976 television seasons failed. The networks were uninterested in a project over which they had no creative control, being presented with the accomplished fact of twenty-four completed episodes. (Actually, Mandell had secured a 'handshake' agreement with a network executive in 1974, but after the man's termination, all his projects were abandoned.) Undaunted, Abe Mandell created what he called his own Space: 1999 Network and sold the completed program into first-run syndication directly to local stations. Much of the publicity mentioned the then-staggering three million pound budget: as a part of the American promotion effort, a glossy magazine-sized brochure was produced, touting Space: 1999 as the Six-and-a-Half Million Dollar Series (an allusion to the then-popular American programme The Six Million Dollar Man) featuring American stars, American writers and American directors.

In the months leading to the beginning of the fall (autumn) 1975 television season (in the U.S., September is traditionally the month in which new TV series begin), Landau and Bain participated in special preview screenings in select cities. Landau is said to have personally contacted editors of the widely read and influential TV Guide magazine in some markets to secure coverage of Space: 1999 in its pages upon learning of ITC's somewhat poor promotional efforts.

While most of the U.S. stations that aired Space: 1999 were independent (such as powerful Chicago station WGN-TV, Louisville station WDRB-TV, Los Angeles station KHJ-TV, and New York City's WPIX-TV), a handful were affiliated with the major networks (such as Charlotte, North Carolina's WSOC-TV, at the time a strong NBC affiliate, and Fresno's KFSN-TV, at the time a CBS affiliate) and sometimes pre-empted regular network programming to show episodes of the series; most U.S. stations broadcast the episodes in the weekday evening hour just before prime time or on weekends. The series was broadcast in 96 countries, mostly from 1975 to 1979. However, it aired in its entirety in very few countries. Often there were long gaps between the first run and rerun or even within the first run.

It was shown in Italy as Spazio: 1999, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, francophone Canada, and France as Cosmos: 1999, Denmark as Månebase Alpha, Brazil and Portugal as Espaço: 1999, Germany as Mondbasis Alpha 1, Sweden as Månbas Alpha, Poland as Kosmos 1999 (1977–1979), Finland as Avaruusasema Alfa, Greece as Διάστημα 1999 (1989–1990), Hungary as Alfa Holdbázis, Spain, Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia as Espacio: 1999, Mexico as Odisea 1999, Turkey as Uzay 1999 and South Africa as Alpha 1999 (1976, dubbed into Afrikaans).

Countries where the show was popular include Yugoslavia, Poland, Ethiopia, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Peru, Japan, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. One of the first previews of the series was in Australia on the Seven Network in July 1975, but the station later split the first series into two seasons. The second season was shown in 1979.

In the UK, the episodes of the show's second season were shown sporadically over a period of a couple of years, starting in 1976, while the last episodes were still in production. In some regions, the final first-run episodes appeared in 1978, more than a year after they were produced; in other regions of the UK, the second series was never shown.

In Canada, CBC Television was the broadcaster of Space: 1999 from 1975 into the 1980s. The first season in 1975-1976 was shown regionally on some CBC owned-and-operated stations, the airtime varying. With the start of the second season in September 1976, CBC Television upgraded Space: 1999 to full-network status, airing it Saturdays on all CBC owned-and-operated stations, with affiliated, privately-owned stations also offering the show on Saturdays. Most of the country saw Space: 1999 at 5 p.m. on Saturdays, a notable exception being the Atlantic Provinces in which it was broadcast at 6 or 6:30 p.m. (their time) or - as was the case in the summers - sometime earlier in the afternoon to accommodate live sports coverage, the airing of which crossed into or totally over the usual Space: 1999 airtime. After the 1976-1977 broadcast year (in which second season episodes were run and rerun), the show's ratings were sufficiently high for CBC Television to give the first season a full-network airing - and with further repeats - in 1977-1978. The French-language CBC Television, Radio-Canada, showed Cosmos: 1999 several times (both seasons) between 1975 and 1980, first on Mondays (1975–1976), then on Saturdays (1976–1977), then on Mondays (1979), and finally on Wednesdays (1979–1980).