BBC One have made a late change to their schedules on Sunday afternoon by adding a special feature-length broadcast of The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar. The 90 minute omnibus is to be broadcast from 3:15pm, replacing the previously scheduled repeats of Eat Well For Less? and The Great British Bake-Off, with an episode of Escape To The Country following afterwards to plug the gap before Points Of View at 5:15pm.


No reason has currently been given for the repeat of Doctor Who's opening story, but it is possible that this is to enable viewers to catch up on the Doctor's adventure who might have missed Saturday's episode owing to the England vs Wales Rugby World Cup game, broadcast live on ITV from 7:15pm.

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It isn't often that Doctor Who receives an unexpected broadcast - the previous time this occured was back in 1974, when a compilation of The Sea Devils was shown in the morning of Monday 27th May instead of the scheduled cricket match coverage, which was lost owing to one of the regular BBC union industrial actions of the era.

This itself wasn't a precedent, though - owing to the tragic events that occured in the United States the day before the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, was broadcast, the BBC decided to repeat it a week later at 5:06pm, leading to a slightly truncated Grandstand and the scheduled Doctor Who episode The Cave Of Skulls pushed back from 5:15pm to 5:30pm instead.

Doctor Who: The Magician's Apprentice had an Audience Appreciation or AI score of 84.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

The score is on a par with the scores for Series Eight of Doctor Who, which averaged 83.3.

52% of the viewers responding, strongly agreed the programme was Fresh and New .

Doctor Who was 29th for the week on UK Television. However an additional 1.1 million viewers watched the episode on catch up on Sunday.

4.58 million watched Doctor Who, The Magician's Apprentice in the UK, according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.

Doctor Who was the highest rated show on BBC One for the day, just above Casualty, which had 4.34 million watching. The day was won by The X Factor which had an audience of 7.33 million.

Last year's series opener, Deep Breath, Peter Capalidi's first story, had an overnight audience of 6.8 million.

A final figure, including those who record the programme and watch it later, will be released next week, and is likely to show a substantial increase on the initial figure.

Viewers to BBC Two this morning had a surprise when the channel transmitted a trailer for the second episode in this year's series, The Witch's Familiar, some twelve hours before the first episode is broadcast.

The trailer went out at 7.25am, just after a screening of the 1934 film Anne of Green Gables, and contained spoilers from episode one.

This is not the first instance of the BBC releasing information too early. In 2013 the Blu-Ray version of The Name of the Doctor was distributed in the US before transmission of the episode, while in 1983 the Target novelisation of the twentieth anniversary story The Five Doctors, was available up to two weeks before transmission.

The BBC have finally confirmed the time when the new series of Doctor Who will have its world premiere television broadcast, with The Magician's Apprentice showing on BBC One on Saturday 19th September at 7:40pm. The episode has a scheduled length of 50 minutes. The evening lineup has yet to be finalised, but it is expected that the episode will be preceded by an edition of Pointless Celebrities and then followed by The National Lottery: In It To Win It. Details of whether Doctor Who will precede or follow BBC One's annual Autumn dance extravaganza Strictly Come Dancing - which kicks off the following weekend - should be confirmed next week.

In New Zealand, PRIME have also confirmed the broadcast time for The Magician's Apprentice, which will be shown prime-time Sunday evening at 7:30pm. This means that those in the islands will get to see the episode narrowly ahead of those in 'nearby' Australia, who see it around two hours later (though the latter's broadcaster ABC will make it available online via their iView service earlier in the morning!). This is the first time since the series returned in 2005 that New Zealand viewers will be able to watch a regular series episode of Doctor Who within a day of its UK premiere.

The Magician's Apprentice: Known Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sat 19 Sep 2015	7:40pm
United States of America	BBC America	Sat 19 Sep 2015	9:00pm EDT	(2:00am BST)
Canada	SPACE	Sat 19 Sep 2015	9:00pm EDT	(2:00am BST)
Asia Pacific	BBC Entertainment	Sun 20 Sep 2015	10:00am SGT	(3:00am BST)
New Zealand	PRIME	20 Sep 2015	7:30pm NZST	(8:30am BST)
Australia	ABC	Sun 20 Sep 2015	7:42pm AEST	(10:40am BST)
Europe (Benelux)	BBC First	Tue 22 Sep 2015	9:00pm CEST
Finland	YLE2	Mon 28 Sep 2015	6:00pm EEST
South Africa	BBC First	Sat 24 Oct 2015	6:00pm SAST
India	FX	"coming soon in 2015"	date tbc
Germany	FOX	December 2015	date tbc	(dubbed into German)
Italy	RAI4	Early 2016	date tbc	(dubbed into Italian)

The BBC have announced a special preview of the forthcoming series premiere will be taking place in Cardiff on the 10th September; the event will see both The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar presented by BAFTA Cymru:


Tickets can be booked via the event page.

The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, BARB, is, for the first time, to release official figures showing the level of UK viewing through on-demand and live-streamed content through online TV Player apps.

BARB provides the official ratings for the UK TV Industry. The final figures currently reflect those who watch live or on catch up within one week of broadcast. They do not include those watching on their computers via the iPlayer. The BBC's own research, Live +7, shows up to 10% of the audience for Doctor Who currently watches online and is not counted in the official figures.

The first BARB TV Player Report will to be released in September and will be the first set of BARB data to focus on viewing that takes place on computer devices such as laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphones. It will report on viewing activity at a device level, rather than a person level, and rely on data that is generated from software code that has been developed by Kantar Media and implemented by broadcasters.

This solution is one of the most advanced audience measurement systems for online TV viewing in the world. The data will be an important building block for the delivery of Project Dovetail, the hybrid measurement system that will that is intended to deliver full cross-platform reporting of audiences.

Justin Sampson, Chief Executive at BARB, said:

The BBC have confirmed that the weekend launch of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, due to be held at the SSE Arena in Wembley, is expected to go ahead, despite the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb in the area.

The BBC told Doctor Who News The area around the SSE arena is currently closed by the police, with Army bomb disposal experts currently trying to defuse the 50 Kg explosive, thought to have been dropped by German bombers in the early 1940's.

The SSE arena has advised people to follow Brent Borough Metropolitan Police Service for updates.

The concert is due to play three shows at Wembley this weekend, before heading around the UK with dates at Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow.

There will be a special event taking place in London tomorrow to tie in with the publication of the new novel City of Death from BBC Books:

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society have announced a change of date for their forthcoming event, Back to the Eighties:


The one day convention takes place at the Pendulum Hotel in Manchester - further details can be found via the Society's website.