Radio Times Covers: 1963 - Current

Above: Frank Bellamy's Cover artwork for "Day of the Daleks", 1972.

From the early 1960's Doctor Who has been covered in the Radio Times. This magazine is the BBC's own in-house listings magazine and has promoted it's major programmes throughout it's life.

The first mention of the programme was on the cover of the issue dated 23 - 29 November 1963. This, however, was a simple mention of the then "new" series. It was not until February 1964 that the programme had it's first proper cover, this featured a photo of William Hartnell in the 'new' story Marco Polo. Since then the good Doctor has graced the cover of the Radio Times many times.

The Pertwee era (1970-74) saw the greatest number of Doctor Who covers (5 in all). This period also saw some superb artwork from the pen of comic artist Frank Bellamy.

Not only did Bellamy draw the cover illustration for the return of the Daleks in Day of the Daleks in 1972 (see above left), their first appearance since Evil of the Daleks in 1967, but he also drew many superb internal illustrations to accompany listings and articles. His last illustrations for Doctor Who in the Radio Times were those that accompanied the Tom Baker story, The Planet of Evil in July 1976.

A year before this he created the wonderful accompanying artwork for another Baker story, Terror of the Zygons, this illustration graces the Main page of the site and remains one of our webmasters favourite examples of 'Who' artwork. Frank Bellamy sadly died in 1976 but his Doctor Who artwork remains as a memorial to an artist of great skill and imagination.

Amazingly, the Tom Baker era, arguably when the series was at it's most popular, saw no covers whatsoever. There were many articles and illustrations inside the magazine but it wasn't until the 20th anniversary in 1983 that the programme took pride of place on the cover again.

Fans had a ten year wait for the next 'Who' cover in 1993. Ironically this was 3 years after the programme had finished it's regular run on the BBC.

The second cover of the 90's marked the brief return of the programme as a UK/US co-production with the Paul McGann TV Movie in 1996. This issue included a special 16 page pullout supplement titled "Return of the Time Lord".

To everyone's surprise, Doctor Who returned to the cover of the Radio Times one more time in the 1990's. A cover photograph of a Dalek, taken by none other than Lord Snowden, heralded a special "Doctor Who Night" in November 1999. The programme had been off air, at least in BBC production terms, for 10 years, but the Daleks and Doctor Who were still considered enough of a pull to make it to the most prestigious spot in the 'BBC's own listings magazine'. Doctor Who was waving goodbye to the 1990's, and the 20th Century, in style!

For the 40th anniversary of the series, in November 2003, Radio Times really went to town with a 'quartet' of covers featuring all the surviving TV Doctors apart from Paul McGann. This event, coinciding with the announcement of a new series of Doctor Who a few weeks earlier, suggested that, if anything, the Radio Times was as interested in the Time Lord as ever.

With the new 2005 series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, on the horizon (at the time of writing it appears due sometime in early to mid 2005) and the BBC's strong backing for the project (BBC high-ups have talked in terms of a "flagship" series) it's a fairly safe bet to say that more Doctor Who covers will follow.

In addition to all the Doctor Who Radio Times covers this section also includes links to scans of the covers from the various Anniversary Specials that were produced by the BBC and the Radio Times.

You will find chronological listings and links to all available covers on each page in this section. Use the links above-left to view each page.