BARB have now issued final ratings for the week ending 22nd May making Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh the 13th most watched programme of the week.

The show was once again the highest non-soap drama of the week and held the 6th position in the BBC One chart.

The chart does not include iPlayer figures where over 1 million have already accessed this episode.

This week's Radio Times once again features Doctor Who on its front cover - though for once centre of attention falls to the Doctor's companion Amy Pond! (Please note the cover may be considered a spoiler for those who haven't seen the preceeding episode, The Almost People)



The magazine includes an interview with head writer Steven Moffat, who was asked about the future of the Doctor's most popular adversary, the Daleks:

Unsurprisingly the media picked up on these comments, with some suggesting that the Daleks were to be rested indefinitely; Moffat clarified his statements this morning on Twitter:

News links: Radio Times, BBC News, The Sun(1), The Sun(2), Metro, Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Express, Anglotopia, Aberdeen Press and Journal, On The Box, The Register, NME

Doctor Who: The Almost People had an Appreciation Index or AI score of 86, once more putting into the excellent category. The score was one of the highest of the day.

The Sunday evening BBC Three repeat had 0.39 million watching, a 1.6% share of the audience.

Sunday night was a much stronger night than Saturday in terms of overnight figures, with 4 programmes rating higher than Doctor Who, pushing the programme down into 32nd place for the week.

Britain's Got Talent was the highest rated show of the week with 10.3 million watching.

The official figures will be published next Monday which should see Doctor Who rise considerably in the weekly chart.

The Rebel Flesh achieved a final official rating of of 7.35 million viewers, representing a 34.1% share of the audience who watched the programme within seven days of broadcast.

This number sees an increase of some 1.65 million viewers since the unofficial overnight figures released the day after broadcast.


Full ratings, which will reveal the chart position of the episode, should be released in the next couple of days.

5.0 million viewers watched episode six of Doctor Who: The Almost People, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The second half of the two part story, written by Matthew Graham, attracted 24.4% of the overnight audience, with 0.57 million watching on BBC One HD.

Although this represents the lowest overnight figure of the series so far, in terms of placing the episode continues the trend of all previous weeks of being the second most-watched programme of the day, a million viewers ahead of third placed Casualty. The UEFA Champions League Final: Barcelona v Manchester United took the top spot for the day , with some 7.9 million watching the match on ITV1.

More people watched Doctor Who than the Football during the period they were on together, although the overnight share was lower than in previous weeks. Figures also indicated around two million viewers switched from BBC1 to ITV1 as Doctor Who ended, reflecting their preference to watch the Doctor first!

Television viewing across the day was down, with many families away from home at the start the half term holiday. The final official ratings, which includes those who record the programme and watch it later, will be available next Sunday.

Doctor Who currently stands as the 27th most watched programme of the week.

On BBC Three, Doctor Who Confidential had an overnight audience of 0.34 million.

The Rebel Flesh has debuted in Australia to excellent ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 823,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. Again, it won its national timeslot, was the top-rating drama of the day and the fourth highest rating programme for the day overall (only beaten by news programs). The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a respectable 598,000 viewers in the five major capitals. These overnight figures, however, do not include regional, rural and time-shifted viewers and hence significantly understate the actual national ratings.

Doctor Who takes a mid-summer break after next week - but not before A Good Man Goes To War! The mid-series finale is due to be broadcast at 6:40pm in a 50 minute time slot, and the BBC have now released the third in their online "prequel" episodes to set the scene for the episode, alongside its trailer:

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A Good Man Goes To War will premiere on BBC1/BBC1HD at 6:40pm, 4th June in the United Kingdom; it then follows a week later (11th June) on SPACE in Canada at 8:00pm ET, BBC America in the United States at 9:00pm ET, and on ABC1 in Australia at 7:30pm.

101,760 viewers tuned in to watch the debut of Day of the Moon on Prime in New Zealand last night, according to overnight figures. This is a drop of 44,760 from last week.

Against Doctor Who, Lorraine Kelly's Big Fat Challenge on TV One had 375,450 viewers, No Ordinary Family on TV2 with 298,840 and Bones on TV3 got 297,100 viewers.

Prime is the seventh national free-to-air television station in New Zealand and is owned by Sky Network Television. TV One and TV2 are operated by the state-owned Television New Zealand and TV3 is owned by MediaWorks New Zealand.

The BBC Doctor Who website has confirmed that Piers Wenger, currently one of three executive producers on Doctor Who, is leaving the BBC.

Wenger commented:
He replaced Julie Gardner as Head of Drama for BBC Wales in January 2009 and in July of that year became executive producer of Doctor Who and took a central role in the casting of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor. His other executive producer credits on Doctor Who include The Adventure Games and Doctor Who Confidential. Away from Doctor Who, he worked on Ashes to Ashes, Christopher and His Kind and Upstairs Downstairs.

In March 2011 Wenger stepped down as Head of Drama but remained at BBC Wales to continue as a creative developer. His position will be filled by Faith Penhale from Kudos in June.


Wenger is leaving the BBC to join Film4 in September, where he will become the senior commissioning executive under Tessa Ross, Channel 4 controller of film and drama, who commented:

His successor as executive producer of Doctor Who will be filled in the coming months by head writer Steven Moffat and the BBC's controller of Drama Commissioning, Ben Stephenson, who said:

Doctor goes up against Doctor in the 2011 Constellation Awards, with both Matt Smith and David Tennant nominated for their role as The Doctor in the Best Male Performance - Television category.

The Awards, now in their fifth year, are Canada's premier awards rewarding excellence in science fiction film and television. Because they cover programmes broadcast in 2010, both the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor's are eligible. Tennant for his performance in The End of Time - Part Two, and Smith for his performance in last year's Christmas special, A Christmas Carol. David Tennant was given last year's award for his performance in The Waters of Mars. Also nominated is Tony Curran for his portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent and the Doctor.

Karen Gillan is nominated for Best Female Performance - Television for her role in Amy's Choice and faces Katherine Jenkins nominated for A Christmas Carol.

Doctor Who is also nominated in the Best Science Fiction Television Series category, a category it has one three times before although it lost out in last year's awards to Supernatural, which has also been nominated for 2010.

Murray Gold earns a nominaton for Doctor Who's music in the Best Technical Accomplishment category, with Steven Moffat and Richard Curtis both being nominated for Best Overall 2010 Science Fiction Film or Television Script, Moffat for The Eleventh Hour and Curtis for Vincent and the Doctor.

For a full list of nomanees see the awards website.

The awards will be announced at a Ceremony on July 16, 2011 at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North hotel.