With Dr. Who creeping toward the millenium, the demand for new and old adventures has enjoyed a resurgence through books, video and (to which will be the focus of this article in particular...) audio. However, the rights to many of the show's monsters/characters are not all owned by the BBC... those are retained by the authors who originally penned the scripts for the series. So, in theory, any company with the cash, connections and tenacity to obtain such rights might very well find themselves entering into the fray that is the Dr. Who franchise... and have no doubt: there are dollars to be made. Currently, two champions dominate the audio arena... Big Finish, run by JASON HAIGH-ELLERY and NANCY HINE, and BBV, overseen by BILL BAGGS.

In this corner, Big Finish... after a string of successful sales adapting Virgin's Bernice Summerfield novels for audio, finally landed the big one: in February of 1999, the boys at Big Finish (Haigh-Ellery and producer/novelist/DWM editor GARY RUSSELL in concert with former BBC range consultant, STEPHEN COLE) announced they had acquired the rights to produce new Dr. Who audio adventures. By July of 1999, they had released The Sirens of Time, the first official Dr. Who adventure to be released (that wasn't a novel, comic book, radio or charity special) since the 1996 Paul McGann telefilm. This was the first in a successful line of adventures whose titles include Phantasmagoria, The Sound of Fear and The Land of the Dead.

In the other corner, BBV... starting way back producing unauthorized non-profit Dr. Who audio dramas (along with Russell and Sirens writer/director NICHOLAS BRIGGS) called Audio Visuals, BBV went on to produce "pseudo"-Who adventures on video: first with The Stranger series starring COLIN BAKER and NICOLA BRYANT, then with the environmental thriller The Airzone Solution (starring a plethora of Doctors including Baker, JON PERTWEE, PETER DAVISON, and SYLVESTER MCCOY). These videos proved popular with fans and quickly led Baggs to obtain rights to certain monster/characters from the actual series. First up, the Auton series... a trilogy of videos bring back those plastic, Nestene-controlled automatons from the Pertwee era of Dr. Who. Next, BBV brought back companion Liz Shaw (also from the Pertwee era), played again by CAROLINE JOHN, in the P.R.O.B.E. series: four adventures which featured a variety of performers from Who's past including Pertwee, Davison, Baker, McCoy, LOUISE JAMESON and SOPHIE ALDRED to name a few. From here, Baggs ventured into the audio arena... first with a series of adventures with "the Professor" and "Ace" (played by McCoy and Aldred, now having to legally refer to these characters as "The Dominie" and "Alice") called Audio Adventures in Time and Space. Ever tenacious, Baggs acquired the rights to several more monsters/characters from Dr. Who including K-9, the Zygons, the Krynoids, and the Rani whose titles include The Choice, The Search, Homeland and The Root of All Evil.

With both companies competing for the monopoly over Who-related audio, two questions spring to mind? Does a rivalry exist between both entities? Why two companies when it seems logical for both to pool their resources and share the wealth? The answer to these are plain and simple... yes there is a rivalry, one that has become so heated that the chances of these companies ever joining forces seems dim at best. Remember, Russell and Baggs used to do the Audio Visuals together, then later parted ways... then there's Nicholas Briggs, who still plays both sides of the fence performing, writing, and directing for both Big Finish and BBV (when it comes to Dr. Who, Briggs' career reminds me of the drunk chick at the party who'll do anybody just for the sake of it). It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened and when... once the studios from both sides began hitting the specialty stores, battle commenced. The why of the situation remains the most elusive... Dr. Who has a huge international following. As far as I'm concerned, there are plenty of pieces from the pie to go around... people will shell out their hard-earned dollars for Dr. Who no matter who is putting it out, period. You'll never see even the most discriminating fan boycott Big Finish over BBV (and vice versa)... it simply doesn't happen. People may look forward to the latest Who adventure from Big Finish, but that doesn't mean they stop liking K-9, or the Zygons, or the Rani. Granted the fan base makes for a competitive market, yet for these companies to continue "bad-mouthing" each other seems pointless at best... like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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Last update: Saturday, September 30, 2000