Final Years of Programme
By the late 1990s, the live studio demonstrations were dropped in favour of purely pre-recorded items. The final series, presented by Adam Hart-Davis, Kate Humble and Roger Black, attempted to revert to the original live format of the show, even using a remix of one of the theme tunes used during its more successful years, but ratings continued to fall, and with only three million viewers in the last series the BBC decided to axe the show. At the time they said that they would produce a number of science special editions under the Tomorrow's World "brand" from time to time. The "Tomorrow's World Roadshow" appeared in 2004 with Gareth Jones (co-host of CITV's How 2) and Katie Knapman taking the helm as the last presenters of a show bearing the Tomorrow's World name, before a partial return to television in 2007.
Virtually all the 1970s and early 1980s episodes only survive in their complete form because a viewer recorded many episodes on an early video recorder (a Philips N1500) and made his tapes available for copying during the early 1990s.
For the 1000th episode, a commemorative CD was produced by Nimbus Records. This contained four audio tracks of the various theme tunes from the 60s, 70s, 80s and the 90s. 1000 copies were made and were given away in a competition. The CD was notable as being the first holographic audio compact disc ever made.
On Monday 14 September 2009 the BBC made some clips and episodes available online.
In the United States, episodes of the series aired on the cable channel TechTV between 2001-2003.
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Famous quotes containing the words final, years and/or programme:
“The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing—that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)