BBC America are to broadcast four new special documentaries in the lead-up to their premiere of the next series of Doctor Who. Forming part of their Supernatural Saturday themed evenings, the first documentary will be broadcast on Saturday 4th August:


The documentary will be preceded by repeats of last year's documentaries, Best of the Companions, Best of the Monsters and Best of the Doctor from 6:00pm.


The following weeks will see documentaries on The Women of Doctor Who (11th August), The Timey-Wimey of Doctor Who (18th August), and The Destinations of Doctor Who (25th August).

BBC Television Centre in London will remain a key broadcasting centre under a deal signed by the Corporation today.

The future of the iconic building had been in jeopardy ever since the BBC announced it was selling the Centre as part of its plans to reduce its property holdings by 30%. Television Centre was built towards the end of the Fifties as the BBC's first purpose-built television complex and was where some of the most recognised and respected British television programmes were made. It was the home of Doctor Who throughout the '70s and '80s when every single studio-based story, bar one, was shot at the Centre.

The BBC today completed the sale of the Centre for £200m to Stanhope Plc, a development company based in London and the south-east. The company has over 30 years' experience as developer, development partner and development manager. During this time it has been wholly or jointly responsible for the delivery of commercial projects in excess of £10bn of commercial value. Recent projects include Central Saint Giles, 23 Savile Row and AirW1, as well as headquarter offices for NM Rothschild and Unilever.

Following redevelopment the BBC's commercial arms BBC Studios and Post Production and BBC Worldwide will lease refurbished office and entertainment space in the completed scheme. The listed elements of Television Centre will be retained and enhanced, including the instantly recognisable exterior view, and some studios, including Studio 1, will be available for hire as television production facilities.

The rest of the site will be developed to include a mix of uses including leisure, office and residential. BBC Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson, who oversaw the sale, said: David Camp, chief executive of Stanhope Plc, said: 

Today saw the official opening of the Doctor Who Experience to the public take place at its new home in Cardiff Bay.

A special ceremony marked the event, with a young visitor dressed as the Eleventh Doctor (complete with fez) given the honour of cutting the ribbon to open the Experience, and a Dalek, Cybermen, Silent and Silurian were on hand to greet visitors and pose for photos.

You can read our full review of the opening and the Experience here.

As the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who approaches, the first indication of special programmes to celebrate the milestone has surfaced with a recent advertisement by BBC Careers for a new producer, stating that a "passion for drama and a knowledge of Doctor Who is essential," and that the applicant should preferably have knowledge of period drama.

The role is for a single drama on BBC Two, with the producer based at the new Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff Bay for a five-month term. Full details of the position included the following:
No other details of the post are known at present, but "docudramas" following iconic careers and film/TV developments have become common in recent years. The possibility of Doctor Who becoming such a subject was broached on The Graham Norton Show back on 11th February, when actor/writer Mark Gatiss was asked if he was involved in such a project - to which he avoided a direct answer to the question and said "I'm writing on the back of my hand, now, what a good idea that would be!" Gatiss previously contributed to 1999's Doctor Who Night on BBC2, including a spoof documentary on commissioning the series, The Pitch of Fear.

Applications for the role closed on Wednesday.

Bert and Dickie - the 1948 Olympic rowing drama starring Matt Smith - is to be broadcast on BBC One on Wednesday 25th July at 8.30pm.

Written by William Ivory and directed by David Blair, the 90-minute production, filmed last August, tells the true story of chalk-and-cheese scullers Bert Bushnell, played by Smith, and Dickie Burnell (Sam Hoare), who were paired to row for Great Britain in the double sculls event a matter of weeks before the 1948 Games in London and won gold.

Also appearing in the drama are Geoffrey Palmer, Alexandra Moen, Clive Merrison, Ron Cook, and Graham Padden.

The BBC has released a series of pictures from the production. Click on the images below to enlarge them.

Doctor Who has helped BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, increase its profits by 8% to £155m for the financial year 2011/2012.

The company exists to exploit the BBC's commercial assets, raising money which can be returned to the Corporation for reinvestment in programmes. In the Annual Report published on Monday, Doctor Who features heavily and makes a major contribution to the £216 million returned to the BBC, a rise of 19% in the figure for the previous year.

Doctor Who and Torchwood were both listed in the report as one of the top-selling brands, achieving success in in over 100 markets. Other top sellers were Top Gear, Frozen Planet, Spooks, Sherlock, Planet Earth, and Natural World.

Doctor Who also helped BBC America achieve its highest ratings ever, up 23% for daytime viewing on the previous financial year with monthly reach averaging 24m, up 10% on last year's 22m. Doctor Who Series 6 was BBC America's best series ever, averaging more than 1.2m total viewers per episode.

The best-selling title in the digital market in the USA was Doctor Who Series 6, which was the most-downloaded series on iTunes in the USA in 2011. The annual report also notes that Doctor Who now has around 100 separate licensees across a wide range of product categories, and was the fourth biggest licence in the market for boys aged 5-14. In addition The Doctor Who Annual was by far the best seller in the children's books section.

BBC Worldwide has significantly increased the number of live events it produces, both in the UK and overseas. The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular debuted to sold-out houses in Melbourne and will tour globally in the year ahead.

The interactive Doctor Who Experience was seen by almost a quarter of a million visitors in London, and is due to open in Cardiff Bay this coming Friday. Three thousand fans attended the first Official Doctor Who Convention in Cardiff over two days in March.

Overall, BBC Worldwide achieved:

• £1,085m worth of sales
• 356m subscribers to its channels
• 31m programmes downloaded
• 25m apps downloaded
• 23m Facebook fans
• 10m live events attendees.

New York City's The Paley Center for Media, in conjunction with BBC Home Entertainment, has announced that it will begin monthly Saturday afternoon screenings of four select serials from the classic series.

Just What the Doctor Ordered will give fans a rare opportunity to see special digitally remastered episodes on the big screen and with superior sound. In addition, trivia competitions will be held with the chance to win DVDs and more.

Screenings begin at 1pm, and are as follows:

• Saturday, June 30th - Resurrection of the Daleks
• Saturday, July 28th - Death to the Daleks
• Saturday, August 25th - Spearhead from Space
• Saturday, September 29th - To be announced

More information regarding these events can be found here.

BBC Worldwide is giving UK fans to win a PlayStation 3 and a copy of the game Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock.

The competition, on the official Doctor Who Facebook page, also offers five runner prizes of a copy of Doctor Who Playstation game.

The promotion closes at 11.59pm UK time on 2nd July 2012 and is open to those resident in the United Kingdom who are at least 18 years of age. The winner will be the first entry drawn at random from all eligible entries.

A copyright wrangle that had prevented a BBC Four adaptation of Room At The Top starring Jenna-Louise Coleman from being shown has been resolved.

The drama, based on the classic novel by John Braine that was first published in 1957, should have been shown in April 2011 but it had to be shelved following a dispute between the late Braine's estate, represented by literary agency David Higham Associates, and Remus Films. The TV rights had been sold by David Higham Associates to Great Meadow Productions but that was challenged by Remus Films.

It is now hoped that the two-parter will be shown "in the near future". In it, Coleman plays the character of Susan Brown opposite Matthew McNulty as protagonist Joe Lampton, as pictured above. The adaptation by Amanda Coe also stars Kevin McNally. It was shot at a variety of locations around Yorkshire and the north-east coast in November and December 2010.

The winning entry in this year's Script To Screen competition has been revealed as coming from Ashdene Primary School in Wilmslow.

The theme of the contest was the Olympics, and the team's mini-episode, which stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and sees the return of the Weeping Angels, is to be shown on today's episode of Blue Peter, airing on CBBC at 5.45pm.

Irene Spawton, Year 6 teacher at the Cheshire school, said the pupils involved, named only as Emily, Libby, and Rebecca, pictured above, left to right, with Smith and Gillan - click on the thumbnail to expand, were thrilled and surprised to have won the competition:
In a short piece last week in the school's newsletter, head teacher Keith Wadcock congratulated the trio on their victory.

The three-minute adventure, called Good As Gold, was filmed at Roath Lock studios the week before last, and Keith Gaskin, the father of Emily, tweeted about it on 8th May: "I've just wished my daughter luck as she's off to Cardiff to have her script made into a Dr Who episode after winning BBC comp. Good luck Em!", 9th May in reply to a comment about the win probably blowing her mind: "It certainly did thanks. The worst part was she knew a while back but couldn't tell anyone! Blue Peter are filming as well" and 10th May: "I've just picked up my daughter after their script was made into a Dr Who episode. Brilliant time apparently & Matt Smith fantastic with them."

The girls' script was chosen by Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat, BBC Learning executive producer Katy Jones, and Doctor Who executive producer Caroline Skinner, who praised the quality of all the entries, saying:
Jones said:

A behind-the-scenes item on how Good As Gold was made will also feature in today's Blue Peter, which is repeated tomorrow on BBC One at 4.30pm and will be available via the BBC iPlayer here within the UK following today's broadcast.