Having fielded off Downton Abbey in the Christmas ratings, Doctor Who will face the popular ITV1 drama again in this year's National Television Awards, taking place at the O2 Arena in London on 25th January. The nominees for the Best Drama Award also include BBC1's Merlin and last year's winner Waterloo Road.

Meanwhile, the Doctor Who team are up against sister show Torchwood in both the Drama Performance: Male and Female nominations, with Matt Smith facing John Barrowman and Karen Gillan facing Eve Myles respectively. The categories also include Martin Clunes (for Doc Martin, ITV1), David Threlfall (Shameless, C4), Jaye Jacobs (Waterloo Road, BBC1), and Suranne Jones (Scott & Bailey, ITV1).

Voting for the shortlist of nominees is now open, with the results to be announced at the award ceremony hosted by Dermot O'Leary, broadcast live on ITV1.

With all the excitement mounting for this year's Christmas Special the ghost of Doctor Who Christmas past still remains, with special effects team The Mill apparently winning the "Effects - Digital" category in this year's Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards.

The company was nominated for the special effects used in A Christmas Carol, with the win cited for: "A vast array of visual effects, displaying a Hollywood-style ambition, was hugely impressive, despite a modest budget."

However, the RTS have now issued an apology to the BBC and E4 over the announcement, where the award should actually have gone to Misfits! The presentation to The Mill has been reported as an administrative error, with the RTS stating: "There was a human error in data entry and steps have been taken to ensure that it cannot happen again."

(newslink: BBC News)

The Sarah Jane Adventures has been nominated for two 2011 BAFTA Children's Awards.

The series is nominated as Best Drama, facing opposition from Combat Kids, House Of Anubis and Just William.

Lead Writer of the series, Phil Ford, is also nominated in the Best Writer category. He faces opposition from James Lamontand Jon Foster for The Amazing World of Gumball, Ben Ward, Steve Punt and Dave Cohen for Horrible Histories and Simon Nye for Just William.

The Sarah Jane Adventures have been nominated for best drama in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in the Children's awards, but have yet to clinch the prize.

In addition, this year’s Awards celebrates the BAFTA Kids’ Vote, in which children aged between 7 and 14 years have their say across a whole range of entertainment media in a nationwide poll to choose their favourite film, television programme, website and video game. The Sarah Jane Adventures is nominated in the TV category.

Voting for the BAFTA Kids’ Vote opens today (24 October 2011) and closes at 18.00 on Friday 25 November 2011. Children can cast their votes at baftakidsvote.org. Winners of each category will this year be presented their Award by JLS.

The Awards will be hosted for the second year running by ex Totally Doctor Who and current Blue Peter presenter, Barney Harwood, and will take place on Sunday 27 November at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

People's Choice have launched their 2012 Awards, and Doctor Who has been nominated in the Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Show category.

The show is up against a wealth of US and Canadian produced series, including the remake of Being Human; other popular shows in the category include Fringe, True Blood, The Walking Dead, Supernatural and Game of Thrones.

Matt Smith has won the Best Science Fiction Actor award at the 2011 Spike Scream Awards. He was up against tough competition from Daniel Craig (Cowboys & Aliens), Chris Evans (Captain America: The First Avenger), Harrison Ford (Cowboys & Aliens) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Source Code).

Doctor Who lost the Best TV Show category to Game of Thrones while Karen Gillan lost out to Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil: Afterlife) in the Best Science Fiction Actress category.

The awards show took place at the Universal Lot in Los Angeles, California on 15th October. The two hour event will broadcast on Tuesday, October 18 at 9/8c PM, ET/PT on Spike TV.

Voting is now open in longlist for the 2012 National TV Awards. Doctor Who and Torchwood: Miracle Day have been nominated in the 'Most Popular Drama' category.

Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, John Barrowman and Eve Myles have all been nominated in 'Outstanding Drama Performance' for their roles in Doctor Who and Torchwood: Miracle Day respectively.

John Barrowman has also been nominated in 'Most Popular Entertainment Presenter' while his show, Tonight's The Night, is up for 'Most Popular Entertainment Programme'.

Competition in the longlist will come from ITV's Downton Abbey. The period drama, featuring Hugh Bonneville (Henry Avery, The Curse of the Black Spot) recently won 6 Primetime Emmy Awards.

Voting in the longlist closes on 17 October 2011. The shortlist will be announced in January 2012.

The nominations for the sixth annual Stonewall Awards have been announced, and include the following recognisable names amongst this year's shortlists:

• Matt Smith features in the Entertainer of the Year category, nominated for his role as Christopher Isherwood in the recent BBC film Christopher and His Kind; other shortlisted include Jane Hazlegrove (Kathleen Dixon in Casualty), Harry Derbridge (The Only Way is Essex), Christopher Plummer (Hal in Beginners) and Jessie J (singer).
• Torchwood features in the Broadcast of the Year category, alongside other shows like Lip Service (BBC3), The World’s Worst Place to be Gay (BBC3), The Night Watch (BBC2), and Jamie’s Dream School (Channel 4).

The awards take place on 3rd November at the V&A in London - see the Stonewall site for full details.

The shortlist for this years Writers' Guild of Great Britain awards have been announced, and Doctor Who has once again been nominated in the Best Television Drama Series category; this is the third year running for the series, an award it has missed out on both other occasions to Being Human, the supernatural drama from Toby Whithouse (who also wrote this coming weekend's Doctor Who adventure, The God Complex).

Writers Steven Moffat, Richard Curtis, Gareth Roberts, Stephen Thompson, Neil Gaiman and Matthew Graham are nominated this time, representing the first half of the series broadcast in Spring. The series is up against The Shadow Line by Hugo Blick, and Accused by Jimmy McGovern, Danny Brocklehurst, Alice Nutter and Esther Wilson.

Steven Moffat is also up for another award, along with Mark Gatiss and Stephen Thompson, for the Best Television Short-Form Drama category for Sherlock; the other nominations are for Eric & Ernie by Peter Bowker, and Exile by Danny Brocklehurst.


The awards ceremony takes place on Wednesday 16th November at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill.

The guild is a trade union for professional writers and the awards are deemed to be special because the work of writers is honoured by their peers and colleagues.

Tonight saw the 15th annual TV Choice Awards take place at the Savoy Hotel in London, with Doctor Who winning the Best Family Drama award for the second year running; the programme beat spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures and this year's NTA winner Waterloo Road.

Karen Gillan won the Best Actress award for her role as Amy in Doctor Who; she was up against fellow "Who" names Alex Kingston (Marchlands), Elisabeth Sladen (The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Freema Agyeman (Law and Order UK).

However, Matt Smith lost out on the Best Actor award, which went to his predecessor as the Doctor, David Tennant (Single Father); other nominees included the other Doctor of this millennium, Christopher Eccleston (The Shadow Line).

Results for all categories may be found via the TV Choice Awards website.

Nominations for Spike TV's 2011 Scream Awards have been announced and voting is now open to the public.

Doctor Who has been nominated for 'Best TV Show' while Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are up for 'Best Science Fiction Actor' and 'Best Science Fiction Actress' for their roles as the eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

To see the full list of nominations and to cast your vote, visit scream.spike.com.

The ceromony will be taped on Saturday, October 15 and will premiere on Spike TV on Tuesday, October 18 (9:00–11:00 PM, ET/PT).