Doctor Who:A Christmas Carol had an average audience of 727,000 viewers for its first showing on BBC America on Christmas Day.

TV by the Numbers report the figure, which is for the 9-10.20pm showing on the channel. Last year the first part of The End of Time, which was shown the day after Christmas, achieved 671,000 viewers in the same timeslot.

Figures are not yet available for the other showings on the channel.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol achieved an Appreciation Index or AI score of 83.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. Although the score is down slightly on previous years, it was still the second highest AI on BBC One for Christmas Evening with just The Royle Family scoring more with 84.

The Sunday evening BBC Three repeat was watched by 527,000 viewers.

With overnight ratings available for the whole week, Doctor Who finished fourth, with a decent chance of moving up the chart when the official figures are released next week.

A Christmas Carol has debuted in Australia to good ratings. TV Tonight reports that Carol averaged 880,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. It won its time-slot, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating drama of the day and was the eighth highest rating programme of the day overall. Doctor Who at the Proms also rated a respectable 141,000 viewers at the early timeslot of 5pm.

The fast-tracking of the Christmas special has also attracted considerable local media, including a number of interviews with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Gillan has been interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, while Smith has spoken to the Herald-Sun, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sun-Herald where he expresses the hope of visiting Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald has also rated 'A Christmas Carol' its 'show of the week' with Michael Idato writing that it 'is sure to be the firmest and finest footprint in the life of the 11th doctor so far.'

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Boxing Day shoppers and restaurant goers got an unexpected surprise in the middle of Melbourne when the giant screen in Federation Square switched from the end of Australia's tragic day's play in the Ashes to a live feed from ABC TV showing the entirety of the 2010 Christmas Special!

UK press coverage in the aftermath of A Christmas Carol have been muted so far, with only a few of the broadsheets reviewing the episode; of those, both Dan Martin from the Guardian and Phil Hogan from the Observer were positive on what they saw:


However, not everybody was happy with the Christmas serving of Doctor Who, with Chris Harvey of the Telegraph being quite negative about it:


In other places, the Metro concentrated on how Katherine Jenkins was being received by people on social communication tool Twitter, quoting several fans for and against the singer's first acting role.

Further reviews may be found from Seenit, Den of Geek and On The Box; further links will be added via Doctor Who in the Media over the forthcoming days.

Unofficial overnight figures show Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol was watched by an audience of 10.3 million on BBC One and BBC One HD last night.

The programme was the second highest rated for the day with EastEnders taking the top place with 11.4 million. The new Matt Lucas / David Walliams comedy, Come Fly With Me was third with just a few thousand viewers short of Doctor Who.

Once again the BBC triumphed with eight of the top ten places. Against Doctor Who ITV scheduled Emmerdale, which got 7.2 million watching. Doctor Who got a share of 39.8% of the total audience.

So far Doctor Who is the fourth most watched programme for the week, behind one Coronation Street and two EastEnders.

1.3 million watched the programme on BBC One HD.

Last year, Doctor Who achieved an overnight rating of 10.4 million watching on BBC One and BBC HD, and was third for the day.

On BBC Three Doctor Who Confidential had 207,000 watching, a 0.8% share of the audience.

It is important to note that the overnight figures are an initial estimate. Final figures, including those who record the programme and watch it within a week, will be published by BARB in around 8 days time.



NB: The 9am Christmas Day repeat of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Death of the Doctor, got an overnight rating of 1.4 million, far higher than its initial showing on the channel.

The third of the Doctor Who Confidential Red Button previews of A Christmas Carol is now available online.

It will be on the Red Button service later today.

The British Film Institute has uploaded an 8 minute clip taken from the recent Q & A with Matt Smith, Katherine Jenkins and Stephen Moffat, which took place after the South Bank screening of the episode earlier this month.

The clip is on the BFI Live page and contains spoilers from the episode.

Last month we listed odds on shows broadcasting over Christmas Day from betting company Paddy Power; with one week to go before the festive programmes go head-to-head once more for the largest audience of the day, here's a sample of the odds you can find online as of tonight:

 
                                      Paddy Power    Ladbrokes      William Hill    Odds Bet
                                       On the Day   For the Week    For the Week   On the Day
BBC1  2:00  Top of the Pops             100/1         100/1            66/1            -
comb  3:00  The Queen                    33/1            -             20/1          33/1
BBC1  4:30  The Gruffalo                   -             -               -          100/1
BBC1  5:00  The One Ronnie               50/1          50/1            50/1         125/1
BBC1  6:00  Doctor Who                    9/2           9/4             4/1           5/1
ITV1  6:00  Emmerdale                    16/1          33/1            25/1         125/1
BBC1  7:00  Strictly Come Dancing        50/1            -               -          125/1
BBC2  7:00  Top Gear                     33/1          33/1            25/1            -
ITV1  7:00  Coronation Street             7/1           7/1             3/1          25/1
BBC1  8:00  Eastenders                    4/9           2/5             1/2           1/2
ITV1  8:00  All Star Family Fortunes       -             -            100/1         150/1
BBC1  9:00  The Royle Family              4/1           4/1             7/2           7/2
ITV1  9:00  Poirot                         -             -               -          150/1
BBC1 10:00  Come Fly With Me             10/1          20/1            16/1          28/1
BBC1 10:30  BBC News                     33/1           -                -             -

Other programmes are also under consideration for the Christmas week, which include Upstairs, Downstairs, The Nativity, Harry Hill's Christmas TV Burp, and Rock and Chips.

It is quite clear from the charts that the top four programmes for Christmas Day are consistently Doctor Who, Coronation Street, The Royle Family and Eastenders, with the latter ranked highest by all companies! All four performed well last year; though the Doctor Who top spot was 'muddied' by BBC1/BBCHD rating considerations, this year the results should be clear ...

... tell everyone you know to watch A Christmas Carol!

The BBC have released information for next Saturday's Doctor Who Confidential, which broadcasts immediately after A Christmas Carol, on BBC3 and BBCHD.


A clip is available from the programme that features Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill presenting their interpretation of the carol "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas":



A preview of the show is also available, introducing the cast and crew from the Christmas Special, plus Matt, Karen and Arthur at the Cardiff Lights ceremony last month:

The BBC's Doctor Who site have made four clips from A Christmas Carol available to watch online. These extracts originally featured during this week's news coverage, but can now be watched independently (and without dialogue intruding over the clips!).

The videos feature as Day Fifteen of the site's Adventure Calendar. Other recent calendar treats include an interview with Katherine Jenkins, parts one and two of Matt Smith's Cracking Christmas Challenge, and The Adventure Games edition of The Christmas Questions.



The Guardian also has a video interview with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.