The BBC is set to release a series of three Tie-In Novels based on its hit series Torchwood. Due out on January 11th, 2007, the novels will be published in the same format as the Doctor Who book series and will carry a similar price tag. The first three releases are:

Slow Decay by Andrew Lane
A friend of Gwen's has recently done an impressive bit of slimming, thanks to a new Cardiff weight-loss clinic with a incredibly simple system, and now Rhys wants to give it a try. Elsewhere in the city, an ordinary woman with superhuman strength and a rapacious appetite attacks a group of teenagers. Eight women have disappeared over the past few days, and the police fear they may have a serial killer on their hands, but as the body count rises and the hungers grow, the Torchwood team realise there may be something much more dangerous than a serial killer at work.

Border Princes by Dan Abnett
Something is here that shouldn't be here. Something is watching. In Cardiff's secret heart, the members of the Torchwood team struggle to define and locate the intruder, and contain it before anyone gets hurt. But this time, they are out of their depth. How do you unlock a secret that can't be broken? How do you assess the facts when the facts change to cover all traces? How do you cope if people are already hurt and no one realises it? What do you do if you're one of them? The Border Princes are watching, and they play for keeps ...

Another Life by Peter Anghelides
A storm is brewing - the water levels of the Bristol Channel are inexplicably rising, and Cardiff Bay is under threat from the worst flooding in years. In the midst of the climate chaos, Torchwood is called to investigate a series of gruesome murders - vagrants found dead around Cardiff with their heads partially eaten. When Owen goes missing following a session on a virtual reality game, Jack, Gwen and the team must discover what's really going on before the water claims them all. And they must face the terror that lies at the bottom of the bay - waiting, feeding, controlling ...This work features characters from BBC's "Torchwood", as played by John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, Burn Gorman and Gareth David-Lloyd.

Many of the major American retailers for Big Finish products have noticed a recent delay in getting titles. This is due to negotiations that are going on between Big Finish and The Ministry of Sound and Vision, their North American distributor. Many retailers are affected by this delay, and subscribers should be aware that they are working on the problem. Some websites, such as Who North America and DoctorWhoStore.com, have recieved copies of the missing stories directly from Big Finish. This follows on the decision made earlier this year to make special releases and subscriber extras available exclusively to those who subscribe directly from Big Finish.

The Radio Times online shows The Christmas Invasion scheduled to air on BBC One (all regions) at 4:25PM GMT on Sunday 17 December. This marks the first time that a Doctor Who episode has been repeated on BBC One since Planet of the Daleks was shown in 1993, and the first ever repeat of a new series episode on the programme's home channel.

In anticipation of the Christmas Day debut of The Runaway Bride on BBC One, the official Doctor Who homepagehas gotten into the holiday spirit. Going along with the holiday theme, there is an Advent calendar on the homepage which will provide a different treat every day between now and Christmas. The daily surprises have already included desktop wallpaper, a "Who's Santa?" game and images of prop money used in filming of The Runaway Bride, with many more to come throughout the month.

The latest edition of the UK listings magazine TV Times - the longtime rival of the BBC's Radio Times - has the results of its reader-voted television awards for 2006. Doctor Who was voted Best TV Show, with David Tennant taking the award for Best Actor.

(Thanks to 'PolyG' from the Outpost Gallifrey forum).

The Christmas double issue of the Radio Times is under threat of disruption and delays due to a planned strike by journalists from midnight tonight.

According to Media Guardian, "NUJ members at BBC Worldwide's magazines division met today and agreed to go ahead with the 48 hour strike from midnight, threatening to halt publication of the Radio Times' bumper, two-week Christmas and New Year edition for the first time in its 83-year history."

However, a BBC spokesman told the MediaGuardian — which illustrated the story on its index page with an image of the 2006 Doctor Who series launch week cover — that: "We'd like to reassure our readers that Radio Times' Christmas and New Year double issue will be appearing on UK shelves on December 9 as planned and will not be affected by December 5 and 6's 48-hour strike action."

This issue of the Radio Times would clearly be a major part of the pre-publicity for The Runaway Bride.

(Additional reporting by Paul Hayes)

Canada's CBC Television online shows Eps 8 - The Impossible Planet (Part 1) scheduled to air on CBC at 8PM EST tonight (December 4th) across Canada. The CBC is airing all of Series 2 every Monday. cbc.ca/doctorwho

Big Finish has announced a writing contest in which the winner would see their story published in an upcoming volume of Short Trips. The contest is open to anyone, of any age, who has never had a work of fiction published that they have been paid for. In the past Big Finish has held similar competitions for their Bernice Summerfield range, but this is the first time that the door has been opened to the Doctor Who range.

Submissions should be less than 2,500 words. Participants are free to use any of the Classic Series Doctors and their companions. The Theme for entries will be: "How the Doctor changed my life."

A full list of rules and restrictions is available at the Big Finish website. Deadline for entries is January 31, 2007.

2007 marks the 15th Anniversary of Bernice Summerfield. To celebrate this landmark achievement, Big Finish Productions has announced their releases for the year.

February sees the release of the long-awaited Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story by Ian Farrington and Simon Guerrier. This book with track Benny from her first appearance in Doctor Who Magazine #192 to the explosive events of her eighth audio season.

February also sees the publication of Missing Adventures, an anthology edited by Rebecca Levene which will be focused on Bernice's early adventures.

Season Eight releases start in February with The Tub Full of Cats by Daniel O'Mahony. April sees The Judas Gift by Nick Wallace, with Freedom of Information by Eddie Robson following in June. Dave Stone takes us to The End of the World in August, while Joseph Lidster's The Final Amendment comes out in October. The Audio Season ends with The Wake by Simon Guerrier in December.

Also seeing publication in 2007 are two more books: The Two Jasons by Dave Stone, War Stories by Jonathan Blum, Kate Orman and Philip Purser-Hallard.

More Details are available at Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield homepage.

The Daily Mail has run an article about star autobiographies that do not sell well. Billie Piper's book 'Growing Pains' is mentioned. The article does not go into details on her book sales, but a quick look atamazon.co.uk list it as 283 in Books. Amazon's synopsis of the book includes the following passage:'Billie Piper has won over the critics and the British public for a second time by re-inventing herself as an actress in BBC productions of Much Ado About Nothing, The Canterbury Tales and, of course, Doctor Who . So how did she get from there to here? This is the funny, honest and insightful story of an extraordinary young life.'.