The Master Tape

Zine
Title:	The Master Tape
Publisher:
Editor(s):	Stephen Broome with the West Kent Doctor Who Local Group
Type:
Date(s):	1986-?
Medium:	audio cassette
Size:	#1-24: C90
Fandom:	Doctor Who
Language:	English
External Links:
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The Master Tape is a Doctor Who tape zine on audio cassette. There are twenty-four issues.

For other similar zines, see: Doctor Who Tapezines.

About

A brief innovation in the mid-80s was the Tape zine, fanzine recorded on to audio tape. Here we have three major contenders, the longest running of these was The Master Tape, then, in my opinion, the best of them all, Tranquil Repose and finally the idiosyncratic CT of Death. All three of these were very entertaining affairs and it is a pity that this particular form of fan communication has not found its way on to CD. There was, at one point, a video zine as I recall, but this was at the time when blank videos were still quite expensive and again this particular medium never really caught on.

There's no denying that Stephen Broome's The Master Tape has to go down in the record books as the longest running and by far the most prolific of all Doctor Who tapezines produced in the United Kingdom. Stephen, along with fellow members of the West Kent Doctor Who Local Group, produced The Master Tape, with the first issue debuting in July 1986. Remarkably, while other tapezines and fanzines rose and fell by the wayside in their hundreds, The Master Tape was still going strong over a decade later. As a fellow tapezine producer who ran out of steam after what seemed a solid amount of issues - six - the staying power of The Master Tape is something I find quite astounding and highly impressive.

Issue 7

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  cover of issue #7