Class Episode Three, Nightvisiting, had an audience of 0.84 million viewers for its debut on BBC One, according the unofficial overnight figures, a share of 9% of the total TV audience.

Although the ratings are slightly down on last week, the series did managed to rate higher than the other four main channels, with Newsnight on BBC Two getting 0.67 million and Through the Keyhole on ITV getting 0.61 million.

Episode Four, Co-Owner Of A Lonely Heart, which followed at 11.30pm had an audience of 0.28 million, a share of 5.1%. This episode was beaten by Tattoo Fixers on Channel 4 with 0.45 million and by Celebrity Big Brother on Five, with 0.42 million.

Class has been available on the BBC Three online channel since October. Last weeks transmission of Episodes 1 and 2 had Audience Appreciations figure of 70 and 71 respectivally.

Official consolidated figures will be available in two weeks time.

The Doctor Who spin-off Class came to BBC One in a late night timeslot on Monday evening, getting its first domestic transmission on a main TV Network.

Episode 1, For Tonight We May Die, which was broadcast at 10.45pm, featured a guest appearance from Peter Capaldi, had an estimated audience of 0.94 million viewers, a 10% share of the total TV audience. The rating is below the channel average of 1.64 million for the timeslot. The drama rated higher than BBC 2's Newsnight with 0.65 million. and ITV 1's Through the Keyhole which had 0.75 million. Top for the timeslot was the Channel 4 reality TV series First Dates Hotel which had 1.37 million watching.

Episode 2, The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, followed immediately afterward, starting at 11.40pm, but only managed 0.39 million watching, a share 7.4% of the audience. The ratings were less than the average for the timeslot for BBC One which is 0.64 million. Class did out rate programmes on the other four main channels, winning the timeslot.

Class has been available on the BBC Three online channel since October where the episodes have had around 200,000 viewers.

Final official ratings should be available in two weeks time.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, had an official rating of 7.83 million viewers, according to data released by BARB.

The rating is over 2 million higher than the initial overnight figure and includes all those who recorded the programme and watched it within 7 days. The figure is slightly higher than the 2015 Special, The Husbands of River Song, which has 7.69 million watching.

Doctor Who finished 9th for the week.

Viewing across the board was slightly down on last year, with Call the Midwife topping the list with 9.21 million watching. Mrs Brown's Boys, Strictly Come Dancing and The Christmas Bake Off all rated highly. BBC One dominated the top of the chart meaning ITV only managed to get Coronation Street into the Top Ten. The annual Christmas message from The Queen was shown simultaneously on BBC One, ITV 1, and Sky 1, giving it a total rating of 8.76 million.

Against Doctor Who, Emmerdale had 6.21 million watching, while on Channel 4, the film Home Alone had 3.19 million. BBC Two was showing a repeat of The Morecambe and Wise Show which had 2 million watching and on Sky1 The Last Dragonslayer had 0.72 million.

Since the series returned in 2005 there have been twelve Christmas day episodes, the most successful being the 2007 episode starring Kylie Minogue, Voyage of the Damned.



The late night, signed repeat of The Return of Doctor Mysterio, shown at 2.30am Friday Morning, had an overnight estimate of 0.061 million watching.

The Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, had an estimated audience of 5.68 million viewers on BBC One, a share of 27.1% of the total TV audience, according to unofficial overnigfht figures.

Top of the tree this year was the Christmas edition of Strictly Come Dancing which had 7.17 million viewers, followed by The Great Christmas Bake Off with 6.23 million. Later in the evening Mrs Brown's Christmas Boys, which has topped the ratings in recent years, scored 6.13 million. The drama Call the Midwife had 6.06 million while soap EastEnders had 5.9 million.

ITV's highest rated programme was Coronation Street with 6.12 million. The Queen's Christmas Message had 5.19 million watching on BBC One and 2.95 million on ITV.

The overnight figures are an initial estimate. Final figures, including those who record the programme and watch within a week, will be released early next week.

Christmas Day: a time of festive presents, festive food, and festive telly!

For us, of course, the placement of the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special in the schedules is always eagerly anticipated, with this year's episode slotted into the late afternoon/early evening slot of 5:45pm. Previous years have seen it as early as 5:15pm last year to 7:30pm in 2013, but this year it is (hopefully!) bolstered by two of the BBC's other highest rated programmes, The Great British Bake-Off beforehand and Strictly Come Dancing afterwards.

In terms of direct competition, ITV is serving up its traditional slice of country life in Emmerdale, and Sky One is premiering its heavily trailed The Last Dragonslayer; on other channels BBC2 has the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show (5:40pm), Channel 4 has We're Going On A Bear Hunt and the film Home Alone (from 6pm), Channel 5 has Singin' in the Rain and then a repeat of Britain's Favourite Christmas Songs (from 6:15pm).

As of today, the odds of Doctor Who making the top spot sits at 22/1; unsurprisingly, Mrs Brown's Boys leads the way, being it has been the most popular show three out of the last four years (only beaten into second place last year by the finale of Downton Abbey!).

               BBC1                                       ITV     
 3:00pm   16/1 The Queen                             40/1 The Queen
 3:10pm    9/1 Frozen                                46/1 The Lion King
 4:45pm    5/1 The Great Christmas Bake Off
 4:55pm                                                   ITV News
 5:15pm                                              66/1 You've Been Framed
 5:45pm   22/1 Doctor Who                            60/1 Emmerdale
 6:45pm    2/1 Strictly Come Dancing                 50/1 For the Love of Dogs
 7:45pm                                                   ITV News
 8:00pm    6/1 Call the Midwife                      25/1 Coronation Street
 9:00pm                                              25/1 Maigret's Dead Man
 9:30pm    8/1 Eastenders
10:30pm    2/1 Mrs Brown's Boys
11:00pm  100/1 The Best of Tracey Ullman's Show     100/1 Love Actually

Predict the Ratings Competition

It's also time for our 'legendary' Predict the Ratings competition, which this year will give readers the chance to win The Return of Doctor Mysterio on DVD/Bluray upon its release, plus a copy of the BBC Book The Whoniverse by Justin Richards and George Mann.


The ratings and positions for 2014 and 2015 are presented here for comparison - recent years have seen a decline in television viewing over Christmas Day, with none of the programmes achieving the heady heights of several years ago.

To enter our competition, please send the following details to comp-ratings@doctorwhonews.net:

• Your name and preferred email address
• Your country of entry (full details will be requested only if you are the winner)
• Your guess at the final viewing figure to the nearest 10,000 (eg.9.99m)
• Your guess at the final position in the chart (eg. 1st) - this will only be used in the event of a tie-break

Terms and Conditions:

• The competition closes at 08:30 GMT, 26th December 2016.
• Only one entry will be accepted per person.
• The competition is open worldwide.
• BARB final figures are expected in early 2016; we will contact the winner once they have been published.

Superheroes around the World unite...

Of course it isn't just the United Kingdom that will enjoy the Doctor's latest adventure this festive period, as the episode will be broadcast in a number of countries within a couple of days of the British premiere:

The Return of Doctor Mysterio: known first broadcast details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sun 25 Dec 2016	5:45pm GMT
Middle East	BBC First	Sun 25 Dec 2016	8:45pm AST	(5:45pm GMT) simulcast!
Australia (online)	ABC iView	Mon 26 Dec 2016	5:45am AEDT	(6:45pm GMT)
Brazil	Syfy	Sun 25 Dec 2016	10:30pm BRST	(12:30am GMT)
United States of America	BBC America	Sun 25 Dec 2016	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Canada	SPACE	Sun 25 Dec 2016	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Latin America	Syfy	Sun 25 Dec 2016	10:00pm CST	(04:00am GMT)
New Zealand	Prime	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:30pm NZDT	(6:30am GMT)
Australia	ABC	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:30pm AEDT	(8:30am GMT) also on ABC ME
Finland	YLE TV2	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:00pm EET	(5:00pm GMT)
South Africa	BBC First	Wed 27 Dec 2016	8:00pm SAST	(6:00pm GMT)
United Kingdom	BBC Two	Fri 30 Dec 2016	2:30am GMT	(British Sign Language)

As well as television, The Return of Doctor Mysterio will also get big screen outings in Australia (26th December), New Zealand (26th December), Denmark (26th and 28th December), Canada (26th and 28th December), and the United States (27th and 29th December).

Various channels will celebrate the series during the next couple of weeks. BBC America kick off a mammoth repeat run dominating the channel from Tuesday 20th December, showing the majority of episodes since David Tennant took over the role in the lead up to the Christmas Special (and also including the premiere broadcast of The Power of the Daleks in colour on Christmas Day!). On Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, BBC Prime in Latin America will show the two series starring Peter Capaldi, whilst Prime in New Zealand repeat the most recent series. On Christmas Day, SPACE in Canada will show preceeding Christmas adventures. BBC HD in Poland doesn't have Mysterio scheduled for the immediate future, but will be running through the Doctor's regular adventures from Rose on the 23rd December through to the New Year.

Readers can always keep up with the ongoing adventures of the Doctor (and pals!) via This Week in Doctor Who.

Class Episode 7,The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did, has now been released and can be viewed in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.

Barb have released their TV Player Report for the four weeks covering the release of episodes one and two of Class. The report, which is still in the beta stage, aims to give an estimation of the numbers of people who watch a given programme via a TV Player such as iPlayer. Class is only available in the UK on BBC Three, which is only available online.

The series has failed make the list of Top 50 on-demand programmes for the four weeks ending 13th November 2016, meaning that less than 185,000 viewers have accessed the first two episodes. The highest rated programme on BBC Three for the period, and the only one to make the top 50, was Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone, which had 247,000 watching. The biggest online programme was Planet Earth II: Islands, which had 576,000 viewers.

It is expected that Class will be screened on one of the broadcast channels at some point, which will bring it to a much larger audience.

The final episode of the series will be released next Saturday.

Some additional Behind the Scenes pictures from the last three episodes of Class have also been released. The pictures contain spoilers from the episodes.

Live +7 Figures are finally available for the whole of Series Nine of Doctor Who.

The Live+7 figure is calculated by the BBC to try to get an accurate estimate of the total unique audience for an episode of a programme. Unlike official BARB figures the Live+7 uses data to include those who watched one of the broadcast repeats of the episode and those who watched the episode on iPlayer all within 7 days of the original transmission.

The figures show an average of 60% of the audience watch Doctor Who on the day of transmission, either as a Live broadcast or as a delayed viewing via a PVR. The number is slightly higher for the series finale and the Christmas spacial. A further 26% of the audience watch the programme, via a recording, within 7 days of the original transmission. The highest delayed viewing was for The Zygon Invasion.

Around 11% on average watch on iPlayer, although this dropped to around 5% for the Christmas special.

The number watching a scheduled repeat dropped sharply this series, from an average of 4% last year, to an average of just 1.3% this year. The decline of the audience watching on BBC Three caused the BBC to cancel the regular repeat on BBC Three from episode four onwards. The only repeat was the late night. signed version on BBC Two, which had an average of 40,000 viewers.

Overall Doctor Who's total Live +7 ratings are down around 1.5 million on the 2014 figures, to average a total of around 6.7 million watching each episode.

The overall chart position for each week ranged from 13th for The Magician's Apprentice down to 30th for Sleep, the lowest chart position since the series returned in 2005. The lowest chart position in the series history was 170th for the second episode of Full Circle in 1980. The only episode this year to make the top ten was the Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song, which came in 8th.

Full ratings data can be found on the Doctor Who Guide

Including time-shifted viewers, The Husbands of River Song averaged 761,000 consolidated viewers in the five major capital cities. With 186,000 extra viewers it was the highest time-shifted program of the day (the second highest time-shifted program only had 33,000 extra viewers) and the seventh highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview or regional viewers.

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song, had an official rating of 7.69 million viewers.

The final rating includes those who watched the programme within one week of transmission. It is an increase of nearly 2 million on the initially reported figure.

Christmas Day saw some impressive timeshift figures. The top programme of the week was the final episode of ITV's Downton Abbey, which increased its audience by four million to finish with an official audience of 10.92 million.

A substantial timeshift was also achieved by the BBC's highest rated programme, Mrs Brown's Boys, which finished with 9.49 million watching. Other BBC programmes doing well included Call the Midwife with 9.3 million, Stick Man with 9.28 million, and Strictly Come Dancing with 8.54 million. The Boxing Day showing of the Agatha Christie mystery And Then There Were None also scored highly with 8.61 million viewers.

The Queen's Christmas Broadcast to the Commonwealth had 6.35 million watching on BBC One but, once ITV's figures were added, it just edged above Doctor Who with 7.76 million viewers.

Doctor Who was 8th for the week and 7th for Christmas Day. It achieved higher ratings than the ubiquitous soaps Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale.

Since the series returned in 2005 there have been eleven Christmas day episodes, the most successful being the 2007 episode starring Kylie Minogue, Voyage of the Damned.

In the United States The Husbands of River Song achieved a 1.242m Live+ SD Rating on BBC America.

---

The BBC Four repeat of the 1977 story The Face of Evil, had mixed fortunes according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.

Part one on Monday had an average of 141,000 viewers, above the timeslot average of 79,000. Part Two, which followed directly had an average of 183,000 watching, below the timeslot average of 268,000.

However just 56,000 tuned in for Part Three on Tuesday evening, rising to 88,000 for the story's conclusion.

Final figures will be released next week, and will include those who recorded the programme and watched it later.

Parts one and Two had an Appreciation Index score of 84 with Parts Three and Four scoring 83.