Catherine Tate has won the Portal Award for Best Actress on Television for her portrayal of Donna Noble. Tate beat Mary McDonnell of Battlestar Galactica to the top position in the awards which have run since 1999 and are voted on by thousands of readers. It is the first time Doctor Who has won one of the major acting awards.

David Tennant was runner up as Best Actor being beaten by Jensen Ackles of Supernatural. Billie Piper was runner up in the Best Guest Star Category with Turn Left coming second in the Best Episode category.

Doctor Who has been awarded its second Guinness World Record, for Most successful sci-fi series. The award is based upon the show's perfomance in ratings, DVD and book sales, and downloading popularity.

The award was presented to Russell T. Davies by Guinness editor-in-chief Craig Glenday at the San-Diego ComicCon on Sunday. Glenday said: "It's the longest-running sci-fi show on TV. But that's not quite enough, it's too good a show to have a longest-running record. Based on things like CD sales, downloads, illegal downloads, we've realised that Doctor Who is the most successful sci-fi show on TV full stop."


The show's first record entry is for Longest running sci-fi series.

Reported by: Digital Spy, CBC, IF Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Guardian
France: Tele7, Tout le Cine, Allocine

The British Fantasy Society, which has presented the British Fantasy Awards since 1971, is this year adding a category for Best Television, and Doctor Who has been nominated for the new category, which does not appear to be strictly limited to the fantasy genre. Also nominated are "Battlestar Galactica", "Dead Set", "Supernatural" and "Dexter".

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook has also been nominated for an award in the Best Non-Fiction category.

A full list of the award nominees is linked from the BFA's website. The winners will be announced in September at the BFA's convention, FantasyCon.

Thanks to "Rolnikov" of the Doctor Who Forum.

Last night was packed with awards wins for Doctor Who as it won two awards at the Bafta Craft Awards and four awards at theBafta Cymru awards ceremonies.

The Mill won the award for visual effects for its work on The Fires of Pompeii, and Phillip Kloss scooped the award for best editing in fiction or entertainment for his work on the fourth series. Russell T Davies had also been nominated for the writing award for Midnight, but lost out to Peter Moffat, the writer of Criminal Justice.

The Bafta Cymru wins saw three out of the four awards going for work on Midnight. These were for Best Sound, Philip Kloss won theBest Editor Award, and Russell T Davies was successful this time in winning Best Writer. Euros Lynreceived the award for Best Director for Silence in the Library.

Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures had also received Bafta Cymru nominations but were not successful in their categories.

In a poll conducted by the Total Sci-Fi Website to find the best sci-fi television theme tune of all time, the Doctor Who theme, originally composed by Ron Grainer and arranged by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop in 1963, came top.

The groundbreaking theme was realized by combining a tape loop of a struck piano string with the sound of test oscillators and filters among a whole host of techniques.

Total Sci-Fi editor Matt McAllister comments: "The poll result proves that in addition to being one of the most popular science fiction shows ever created, Doctor Who also boasts the most iconic sci-fi theme tune. Grainer and Derbyshire’s theme manages to convey the outlandish quality of the show and is instantly recognisable to fans throughout the world just by its opening bars."

Other themes in the top 10 include Star Trek, Red Dwarf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Thunderbirds. See Total Sci-Fi for the complete list.

Bafta Cymru, the Welsh division of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, has announced the nominees for the 18th Annual BAFTA Cymru Film, Television and Interactive Media Awards. Doctor Who has been nominated in nine categories, Torchwood in two, and The Sarah Jane Adventures in one.

The nominations include:

• Best Drama Series/Serial for Television: Doctor Who
  
• Best Interactive: bbc.co.uk/doctorwho
  
• Best Director Of Photography: Drama: Rory Taylor, "Silence in the Library"
  
• Best Sound: Doctor Who sound team, "Midnight"
  
• Best Editor: Phillip Kloss, "Midnight"
  
• Best Make-up: Barbara Southcott, "The Next Doctor"
  
• Best Screenwriter: Russell T Davies, "Midnight"
  
• Best Original Music Soundtrack: Murray Gold, "Midnight"
  
• Best Director: Film/Drama: Euros Lyn, "Silence in the Library"
  
• Best Design: Edward Thomas, "Adrift" (Torchwood)
  
• Best Costume: Ray Holman, "From Out of the Rain" (Torchwood)
  
• Best Children's Programme: The Sarah Jane Adventures

In addition, Torchwood actress Eve Myles was nominated in the Best Actress category for her work on the BBC Wales drama Belonging.

A full list of nominees (PDF) can be found on the Bafta Cymru website. The winners of the Bafta Cymru Awards will be announced on Sunday, 17 May in a ceremony at the Wales Millennium Centre.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced the nominees for the BAFTA Craft Awards, and Doctor Who has been nominated in three categories. Russell T Davies has been nominated in the Writing category for "Midnight"; The Mill has been nominated in the Visual Effects category, for their work on the episode "The Fires of Pompeii"; and Philip Kloss has been nominated in the Editing Fiction/Entertainment category for his work throughout Series Four.

Doctor Who has been nominated for the BAFTA Craft Awards several times since its return to television, and has won once. The series received five nominations in 2008, including a win in Writing for Steven Moffat's "Blink" script. Doctor Who was also nominated in two categories in the 2007 awards, and in three categories for the 2006 awards (each honoring television broadcast in the previous year).

The winners of this year's BAFTA Craft Awards will be announced on Sunday, 17 May at a ceremony in London.

Series four of Doctor Who, transmitted last year on BBC One, has been shortlisted in the Best Drama Series category at the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), the UK's most prestigious television accolades. This is the second time that the programme has been nominated for this award - series one was nominated and won the category at the 2006 ceremony.

The BAFTA website shows that Doctor Who has been nominated alongside Channel 4's Shameless and BBC One stablemates Spooks and Wallander. Spooks and Shameless were also nominated the last time that Doctor Who won the category.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony held in the Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday the 26th of April.

The nominations for the 2009 Hugo Awards have been announced, and once again Doctor Who has been nominated for the "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form" category. Two Doctor Who stories received nominations: "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" by Steven Moffat, directed by Euros Lyn; and "Turn Left" by Russell T Davies, directed by Graeme Harper. They will compete against episodes of Lost andBattlestar Galactica, and Joss Whedon's Internet musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog".

The Hugo Awards are given each year for the best works of science fiction or fantasy, as determined by the members of the World Science Fiction Society. Doctor Who has won every year since its return to television in 2005: the last three winners have been "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" (2006), "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2007) and "Blink" (2008), all written by Steven Moffat. Five other Doctor Who stories and one episode of Torchwood have been nominated in the past.

This year's winner will be announced at Anticipation, the 67th Annual Worldcon, in Montreal, Canada in August.

Thanks to Steve Manfred.

Doctor Who has won an international award for its special effects, and David Tennant has been doubly nominated for the Broadcasting Press Guildawards.

The Visual Effects Society, an international organization of visual effects professionals, nominated Doctor Who in two categories this year. Simon Wickers, Charlie Bennett, Tim Barter and Arianna Lago won the award for "Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Broadcast Program or Commercial" for their work on "Silence in the Library" (click thumbnail below for example). Doctor Who has been previously nominated several times for VES awards, but this is the first time it has won; historically, the awards have generally gone to North American productions.

The team at the Mill were also nominated for "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or Special", but lost to the HBO miniseries "John Adams". The full list of nominees for the 7th Annual VES Awards are here; the list of winners is here.

In other awards news, David Tennant has been nominated twice in the Best Actor category of the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, selected by journalists who write about TV and radio. Tennant is nominated both for his role as the Doctor and for his performance as astrophysicist Arthur Eddington in the BBC/HBO coproduction "Einstein and Eddington", which has also been nominated for Best Single Drama. The winners will be announced on 27 March. Further details are available at the Broadcasting Press Guild website and from the Guardian.

Thanks to "PolyG" of the Doctor Who Forum.