My cousin was a big fan and told me about it just in time for a local station (the one that later became a Fox affiliate, and ran RGB) to start running the Tom Baker episodes. That's all they ran, though a few years later the local PBS station picked it up–and started with “Castrovalva”, which made an interesting transition.
I've only seen a few episodes of the new series. “The Satan Pit” was the most recent one I saw. I try to not let the fact that the newere fans are utterly crazy scare me away from the new show; (sigh) I remember the good old days, when Doctor Who wasn't about him having sex with Rose, or Martha, or the Master, it was about fighting Daleks, the Cybermen, or the Master.