An Unearthly Child will not be released on iPlayer, BBC confirms

The BBC confirmed yesterday that Doctor Who's first four episodes, commonly referred to as 'An Unearthly Child', will not be released on BBC iPlayer next month. The announcement follows allegations from the son of the Anthony Coburn, the serial's writer. He claims the BBC do not have the right to distribute his father's work and claims he has 'cancelled' the BBC's license to use Coburn's episodes.

'An Unearthly Child' will be absent from BBC iPlayer's new Doctor Who collection.

Anthony Coburn was commissioned by the BBC to write a four-episode serial for a new Saturday tea-time science-fiction show, Doctor Who, in 1963. He was also asked to write three further stories for the show, although these were never produced. One of his planned stories was replaced with Terry Nation's cult classic seven-parter 'The Daleks'.

Anthony Coburn wrote Doctor Who's first episodes.

"The BBC behaved abominably towards my late father," Stef Anthony Coburn, son of Anthony Coburn explained in a social media post, "I do none of this merely for money; but to right past wrongs."

Over the past few days, Stef Coburn as made multiple social media posts airing his frustration with the BBC and explaining how he has been attempting to block the corporation's access to his father's work since he inherited the rights. 

Over 800 episodes of Doctor Who will be released on 1st November

On Tuesday, the BBC spokesperson told the Radio Times "This massive iPlayer back catalogue will be home to over 800 hours of Doctor Who content, making it the biggest ever collection of Doctor Who programming in one place but will not include the first four episodes as we do not have all the rights to those."

The catalogue of remaining Doctor Who episodes will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer from 1st November in the UK.