Doctor Who DVD Files was a fortnightly partwork magazine published by GE Fabbri Ltd, authorised by 2 entertain and BBC Worldwide. As well as a magazine, each issue included a DVD of two episodes of the re-launched series of Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant as the Ninth and Tenth Doctors (and later Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor).
From issue 29, the series was extended beyond The Next Doctor release (DWDVDF 28), with DVDs of classic stories. Following the first black and white release of the story Tomb of the Cybermen (DWDVDF 73), the magazine began releasing back-to back episodes of the Eleventh Doctor‘s televised adventures (from DWDVDF 74) up to A Christmas Carol.
OVERVIEW
GE Fabbri Ltd ended their successful Doctor Who: Battles in Time collection after an extended run of 70 issues. Doctor Who DVD Files was launched on 14 January 2009 throughout the UK and Ireland after a regional test in the north-east of the UK (from September 2008).
This new title was promoted with a £1 million advertising campaign in magazines and on the commercial channels.
Due to licensing issues involving the inclusion of the DVDs, this magazine will not be distributed in North America. However, beginning in February 2009 the magazine introduced an online version without DVD content that was accessible worldwide (see below).
The magazine title by necessity had to include ‘DVD’ so avoid confusion with The Doctor Who Files, a range of BBC Children’s Books.
Initially launched as a twenty-eight-part series (including releases up to and including The Next Doctor), the title was expanded to forty issues with ‘classic’ story releases as ‘vanilla’ editions (i.e., without extras). It has since been expanded several more times, and is currently expected to run to at least 140 issues continuing well into 2014.
