Final ratings data for the week ending 9th September 2012 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board or BARB, puts Doctor Who as the ninth most-watched programme of the week on British television.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship had a final official rating of 7.57 million viewers, over 2 million higher than the initially reported figure. The share of 31.9% is also much higher than the initial estimate.

The episode was the fourth for the week on BBC One with the crime series New Tricks once more taking top place followed by two episodes of EastEnders. ITV had three episodes of Coronation Street and two of The X Factor in the list above the Doctor. While BBC One BARB listings include those watching on BBC One HD, ITV listings do not include ITV HD or ITV+1 which need to be added to the main channel statistics in order to compare like for like.

The chart position of 9th is higher than most of last year's episodes, which, apart from the season opener, all hovered around the lower half of the top twenty.

The final ratings figure does not include the BBC Three repeat, when 430,000 watched. No do they not include those watching on iPlayer where around 800,000 people accessed the episode in the first two days. Around 1.8 million have now accessed the series premiere Asylum of the Daleks.

Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy had an Appreciation Index or AI score of 85.

The score is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the episode. It is based of a survey of 5000 people. The score of 85 is slightly lower than the first two episodes in the series, but still puts the programme into the excellent category.

Highest scorer on the two main channels was Casualty, with 88, while highest scorer of the day was Coast on BBC Two with 90.

The new series of Downton Abbey had an overnight rating of 9.0 million on Sunday night, which helped, along with Sunday's X Factor, push Doctor Who down to 16th for the week on overnight figures. Final consolidated ratings will be released next Monday.

The BBC released another picture today to further promote next Saturday's episode The Power of Three. It shows Amy, Kate Stewart, played by guest star Jemma Redgrave, and the Doctor with one of the mysterious cubes that feature in the story.


A trio of pictures from The Power of Three was released earlier this week and more will be made available in the next couple of days. The episode will air in the UK on Saturday 22nd September at 7.30pm.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship has averaged 577,000 viewers in the five major Australian capital cities. Up against the football finals, it was the top-rating drama of the day and the seventh highest rating programme of the day overall.

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A Town Called Mercy had an overnight audience of 6.6 million viewers, a share of 29.1% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was third for the day, behind the big entertainment hitters, The X Factor with 9.0 million and the launch show of Strictly Come Dancing which has 8.0 million watching, providing a strong lead in for the Doctor.

Against Doctor Who, ITV1's Red and Black managed 3.6 million viewers, while Dad's Army on BBC Two had 1.9 million watching.

Last year's third story of the autumn, The Girl Who Waited, had 6.0 million watching with a lower audience share while the 2011 launch of Strictly Come Dancing had an audience of 7.6 million viewers.

The rating for Doctor Who puts it at 14th place for the week, with Sunday's ratings still to come, although final consolidated figures, which will be available next week, should see this position rise.

The BBC have released their latest 'confidentialette' to accompany the new episode, A Town Called Mercy; the behind-the-scenes video takes a look at how the Doctor galloped a horse and the creation of a cyborg.

Plus the trailer for next week's The Power of Three is now online to view.

It's an hour before the Doctor travels to the Wild West in A Town Called Mercy on BBC1, so here's a quick roundup of the videos released online to promote the episode over the course of the last week:

Yesterday's premiere of Asylum of the Daleks in New Zealand was watched by 171,690 viewers on Prime, making it the highest-rated programme on the channel for the day and the second highest rated episode for the Eleventh Doctor so far - The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe achieved 175,970 viewers on 19th January.

The premiere of Let's Kill Hitler, broadcast around this time on 15th September, achieved 117,100 viewers.


For other channels on the night, Embarrassing Bodies on TV2 won the time-slot with 380,860 viewers; 307,170 watched The X Factor USA (started at 7:30-9:30pm average), 224,900 watched TV One's Four Weddings, 74,770 watched Family Guy on Four (9:00pm start), 64,450 watched the ITM Cup Rugby on Sky Sport 1 (7:35-9:15pm average), 38,600 watched Code on Maori TV, 34,410 watched Law and Order Criminal Intent on The Box, and Tower Heist on Sky Movies 1 was watched by 21,250. Top show of the day was One News on TV One, with 678,810 tuning in.

The BBC have published details for the finale of this batch of Doctor Who episodes, The Angels Take Manhattan, which is due to be broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom on Saturday 29th September. The time of the episode is yet to be confirmed, and will be finalised next week.

The BBC have now confirmed that the fourth episode of the current series of Doctor Who, The Power of Three, will be broadcast on BBC1 at 7:30pm on Saturday 22nd September. As in previous weeks, the episode will face competition on ITV1 from Red or Black? and The X Factor; on the other main channels, BBC2 continues its run of Dad's Army, Channel 4 launch a new dating game show called Baggage, whilst Channel 5 travels to the wild west in the film Maverick.

Three images have been released to promote the episode, which also features guest star Jemma Redgrave who plays the role of Kate Stewart. A variety of additional new images will be revealed next week.