Unofficial figures show that the final episode of Series Four, Journey's End, was watched by 9.4 millionviewers, giving it a 45.9% share of the total television audience.

Not only was the programme the highest rated on Saturday, beating the second placed Casualty by nearly 4 million viewers, it is currently the highest rated programme of the week. If no Sunday programme manages to beat it then this will be the first time in the series' long history that it has ever been the top rated programme of the week.

Fifteen minute breakdowns show that Doctor Who peaked with 9.8 million viewers while the highest rating ITV1 got against the programme was 2.4 million viewers. After it finished BBC1 lost 5 million viewers. ITV1's highest rated programme on Saturday was New You've Been Framed! with 4.2 million.

Final figures will be released by BARB in ten days time.

In contrast to the past several years' episodes, the closing credits of the season finale "Journey's End" today in the UK did NOT feature a title for the forthcoming Christmas episode of Doctor Who... only the cryptic phrase "Return of the Cybermen". That's likely not the title for the next story; when it's announced we'll bring it to you. It's been known for at least two months that the Cybermen would play a part in the next transmitted episode.

Meanwhile, to avoid spoiling any surprises for our readers, we will refrain from mentioning anything on the News Page about the state of affairs at the end of the story. "Journey's End" airs in America in less than a month, and the fourth series is also now currently airing in Australia.

The build-up to tonight's series finale of Doctor Who has continued unabated across the BBC and other British media sources during Saturday.

2005 Doctor Who Mastermindwinner Karen Davies and Doctor Who Adventures editor Moray Laing appeared on BBC One's "Breakfast" news programme this morning, to discuss their thoughts on the finale. Throughout the programme, this feature was trailed with a sequence of clips showing all ten Doctors. Over on BBC Radio 2, Tim Smith was taking text message and e-mail suggestions from listeners on who should be the next Doctor during his early morning show. Various names were suggested, such as comedian Billy Connolly, and many listeners also contacted Smith to correct him after he erroneously gave out the episode's start time as five forty. The BBC News website (pictured) has made the excitement surrounding the finale the top story in their entertainment news section.

Journalist Andrew Billen asks if "time has finally run out for coolest man on TV" in The Times. Elsewhere in the same paper, long-time Doctor Who supporter Caitlin Moran ponders the speculation surrounding who the next Doctor might be. The same newspaper's TV previewer, David Chater, complains bitterly about not having been given a preview disc for the episode: "If the Daleks have conquered Earth, the Tardis has been destroyed and the Doctor is immobilised, the last thing anyone wants is news leaking out in the press. Think of the effect on public morale." The Times have also spotlighted a feature from their archives, a 1975 article reporting how Doctor Who has been blamed for an epidemic of spider fears among children.

The Daily Mirror has an interview with Russell T Davies, where he comments on how few people have seen tonight's epispde: "The Controller of BBC1 has not even seen it, or the Head of Drama, because it's been locked away. But I have seen it about 15 times." Even the Mirror's sports section gets in on the act, running the odds on possible contenders for the role of the Eleventh Doctor on their betting page.

In The Independent, Deborah Orr comments that: "It's OK to be scared by Doctor Who, though. Or lately, simply in awe of him." The Daily Telegraphhave brought together all their recent Doctor Who content into a special mini-site, and their print edition features Davros on the cover of their TV listings supplement. The South Wales Echo looks at the curious practice of fans calling the Doctor's mobile phone number, as displayed in last Saturday's episode.

The British media has gone into Doctor Whooverdrive in recent days, with a frenzy of comment, speculation and analysis across all kinds of outlets on television, radio, the internet and in print. As the week has gone on the avalanche of coverage ahead of tomorrow's climactic finale to series four has continued to build, and the excitement shows no sign of dying down yet.

This evening, BBC One's main early evening news bulletin, the Six O'Clock News, carried a report from entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba, looking at the secrecy surrounding tomorrow night's episode. It featured a short new clip from the episode, as well as comments from Freema Agyeman - who said friends had been texting her about the series, and people on the street had been asking her about the episode all week - and Russell T Davies. Following the showing of the report, the weatherman commented that this Saturday's rainy weather would be suitable for staying indoors and watching Doctor Who!

Davies is interviewed in text and in video on the BBC News website, answering questions from viewers and commenting on the secrecy surrounding the finale. In the former he reveals that he has no plans to write for the series under Steven Moffat's control - "I think Steven's more than his own man. He doesn't need me at all. I won't write for it in the future. I'm done with it" - while in the latter he extols the virtues of keeping plot details secret from the press, and comments on how the degree of excitement surrounding the cliffhanger ending to last week's episode has taken him somewhat by surprise! The subject of just how the production team have managed to keep the ending to the series a secret is studied in another piece by Lizo Mzimba on the BBC News site.

Concurrently with the BBC One Six O'Clock news, the series finale was also a topic on the BBC's flagship radio news programme, the Radio 4 news at six o'clock. This was then immediately followed by the comedy series The Now Show, one of the team behind which is fan and Doctor Who Forum regular Mitch Benn, which again mentioned the impending finale. And this was by no means the only BBC radio coverage of the day - producer Phil Collinson discussed the series on this morning's edition of Five Live Breakfast. Meanwhile, over on BBC television's breakfast programming, Freema Agyeman appeared as a guest on BBC One's "Breakfast".

All of this media promotion has not been limited to the BBC, however. On ITV1, Sylvester McCoy was a guest on the early morning GMTV programme, while later on in the morning Russell T Davies was a guest on the "This Morning" sofa. A particularly entertaining passage ensued when a clip was shown of Davies presenting the young children's programme "Playschool" in 1987! He answered various questions sent in by viewers, but refused to give away any information about tomorrow night's episode. Later on, in the early evening, a discussion of the series was a major feature of "Richard and Judy", the popular Channel 4 chat and lifestyle programme.

The print media has been no less enthusiastic in discussing the series ahead of Saturday. The Daily Telegraph newspaper, in particular, seems to have become something of a Doctor Who fanzine in recent days, publishing features on The Ten Greatest Doctor Who Stories, a Q&A with their resident "Doctor Who expert", a piecespeculating about the fates of various characters, an article explaining how Doctor Who is "Britain's favourite alien", a feature about reinventing Davros, and a piece generally celebrating the excellence of the series.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail wonders who the best Doctor is, as well as claiming that Doctor Who fever is sweeping the nation. Jane Graham blogs for The Guardian about Doctor Who helping to teach children about empathy and tragedy. The Bournemouth Echo interviews local boy Julian Bleach. And last but not least, What's On Stagefeatures David Tennant and Catherine Tate on its cover.

Many thanks to PolyG and all on the Doctor Who Forum media thread, without whom...

The Broadcast Audience Research Board(BARB), the company that compiles television ratings data in the UK, has today published final viewing figures for the week ending Sunday 22nd June. Final figures are more accurate than the initial overnight ratings, and include those who recorded a programme and watched it within the week of transmission.

The figures show that episode eleven of the current series, Turn Left, had a final viewing figure of 8.09 million for its debut showing on Saturday night on BBC One. This is over a million viewers higher than the initial overnight figure, and means the episode finished in 4th place in the most-watched programmes across all channels for the week. This is the highest chart placing ever gained by a regular series episode of Doctor Who, beaten only by the 2nd place finish of last year's Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned.

The BBC Three Sunday night repeat of the episode gained 915,000 viewers, finishing fourth for the week out of all BBC Three programmes.

Full ratings data, including data for iPlayer downloads, can be found in the Doctor Who Forum.

Episode Twelve of Series Four, The Stolen Earth has received a record breaking Audience Appreciation figure of 91. This is not only the highest score the programme has ever received, but is one of the highest figures ever achieved for a mainstream television programme.

Sunday's football was the most watched programme of the week making Saturday's Doctor Who the 8th in the list. This position may rise when corrected figures, including numbers for those recording the programme, are released by BARB in 9 days' time.

Sunday's BBC3 repeat got an overnight audience of0.78 million viewers. It was a 3.4% share of the multi-channel audience and the most watched programme on all multi-channel TV for Sunday.

Saturday's edition of Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 1.13 million viewers. The programme, which had a share of 6.8 %, was the most watched on multi-channel television on Saturday with double the audience of the second placed Poirot. The Sunday repeat had 0.53 million watching.

The British press has been full of comment and speculation following the broadcast of "The Stolen Earth" on Saturday. As might be expected, many of the articles published in the past couple of days contain spoilers for the series to date, so the rest of this report should not be read - and the links contained herein certainly not followed - if you have not yet seen series four in general or "The Stolen Earth" in particular.

Various newspapers carry reviews of Saturday's episode. Sam Wollaston of The Guardian felt that "It's going to be hard to top this episode. It had everything - Martha, Rose, the Torchwood lot, impending darkness, daleks - even cameos from Paul O'Grady and Richard Dawkins." Andrew Billen of The Times had mixed feelings - although he wrote that the series is "almost as pleased with itself as David Tennant's performance", he did concede that "For the first time for a while, I am actually looking forward to the next episode." Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent was more critical: "My brain began to lock under the repeated assault of the kind of lines that could be scattered at random over any Doctor Who episode at all without seeming out of place: "But... that's impossible!"; "It can't be!"; "Exterminate! Exterminate!" Change the record, guys."

The viewing figures of the series are the subject of several other media reports. Both Digital Spy and theMediaGuardian mention Doctor Who's strong performance at the weekend in connection with the rival ITV1 channel achieving what is believed to be the lowest Saturday all-hours share in its history, with just 10.2% of the watching audience across the day, compared with 26.9% for BBC One. The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, turns its attention towards predicted ratings for next Saturday's climactic episode, claiming that the BBC expects 10 million people to watch "Journey's End".

The Sunday Telegraph's sister paper, the Daily Telegraph, has run a feature tipping Scottish film star Robert Carlyleas Tennant's successor in the role as and when he leaves the series. The Daily Mail has a similar story. The subject of the departure of David Tennant has become a hot topic of conversation after the cliffhanger ending to Saturday's episode: the Guardian's website features a blog posting from Stephen Brook speculating about whether a new Doctor is about to be cast, as well as another piece from Gareth McLean, praising the unexpected plot twist.

Finally, the Wimbledon Guardian carries a report of Catherine Tate opening a summer fair at the weekend, in aid of a local primary school. She was greeted by several children in Doctor Who-related costumes.

The latest issue of the BBC's Radio Times listings magazine, on sale across the UK from Tuesday, once again featuresDoctor Who as its cover story. The image - a larger version of which can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail picture at the bottom of this report - is a significant spoiler for the final two-part story of series four, so overseas readers should be aware, if they are avoiding spoilers, not to read on.

The cover is the 44th the Radio Times has granted Doctor Who in its long history, and the 7th this year alone, including the four alternative covers produced to tie in with the broadcast of "Partners in Crime". It comes only two weeks after the previous Radio Times cover feature, which tied in with Rose's return in the episode "Turn Left".

Featured within is an extensive article looking behind-the-scenes at the final episode of the series, "Journey's End". Interviewed are various members of the cast and crew, including actor Julian Bleach (Davros), who comments: "I knew this character, this Dalek world and everything from my childhood — that's so deep in my memory. But so strange as well, to be suddenly plunged into the middle of it." Russell T Davies says of the finale: "For all the spectacle, it's about character, in the end. It's an honour to write dialogue for David and Catherine – whether I'll ever get that chance again depends on what happens in this final episode."

Voyage of the Damned has scored the highest Australian ratings ever for Doctor Who in the modern era. According to David Dale 'Voyage' rated 1,248,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. The record breaking Christmas special, starring Australian Kylie Minogue, was only beaten in its timeslot by Channel Nine's 60 minutes which was the top-rating programme of the day with 1.8 million viewers ('Voyage' was the top ABC programme for the day and 7th overall). The previous highest rating Doctor Who episode for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was 'Rose' which scored 1.1 million Australian viewers back in 2005. As way of comparison, the ABC's top programme for the preceding week was 'Spicks and Specks' which received 1.35 million viewers.

The return of Doctor Who has also received some significant media coverage down under.
The Sydney Morning Herald gave 'Voyage' its show of the week and their online TV guide also gives the show a positive review while Kylie Minogue's return to acting has also received some local attention. The Sun-Herald gives 'Voyage' four stars saying there 'is a lot to love about this story, which is part Titanic, part-The Poseidon Adventure.'Melinda Houston of 'The Sunday Age' also previews 'Voyage', analysing 'the enduring sex appeal of the ever-changing Time Lord' noting that the Doctor 'loves smart women', is 'mature', 'saves planets', 'maintains a childlike sense of fun, is 'practical and hands-on', 'a man of mystery, and increasingly swahsbuckling' but perhaps 'most importantly, is kind. A little dotty and thoughtless occasionally, but immensely kind. And that, gentlemen, is a quality consistently underestimated by the Mars-dwelling gender, and valued immeasurably by we Venus types.'Ian Warden of 'The Canberra Times', who claims to have seen every series since 1963, says David Tennant 'is the best doctor there's been' even if he says we should 'respect' the show 'for being . . . easily the longest-running TV science-fiction pantomime in the world.' Meanwhile,Crikey TV commentator,Glenn Dyer, also describes 'Voyage' as 'the highlight of the night.'

As previously reported, the ABC has also confirmed on its online TV Guide that it is indeed showing Doctor Who Confidential Cutdown on ABC1 after each episode of Series 4 starting with "A Noble Return" on Sunday 6 July 2008.

Unofficial figures show that episode Twelve of Series Four, The Stolen Earth, was watched by 7.4 millionviewers, giving it a 38.3% share of the total television audience.

The programme was the highest rated on Saturday, beating Casualty by nearly 2 million viewers. BBC1 had a drop of over 3 million viewers when Doctor Who finished.

ITV1's highest rated programme of the day was Who Dares Sings with 3.7 million.

Doctor Who is currently the 7th most watched programme of the week. Final figures will be released by BARB in ten days time.