Bell Media and BBC Worldwide North America have announced a new licensing agreement for Doctor Who in Canada, which will see streaming service CraveTV become the exclusive streaming service for the show in the the country.

The agreement will see Series 9 made available this summer, with the previous eight moving to the platform by the end of the year. Series 10 onwards will be made available after their full-season broadcasts on SPACE.


Matt Forde, EVP Content Production, Sales and Distribution, BBC Worldwide North America, said:
Tracey Pearce, Senior Vice-President, Specialty and Pay, Bell Media, added:

Mike Cosentino, Senior Vice-President, Programming, CTV Networks and CraveTV, continued:

The series has been the most-watched entertainment specialty programme on SPACE in their key A25-54, A18-49, and A18-34 demos, with Season 9 achieving an average of 697,000 viewers in its Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET timeslot - becoming the most-watched season in series history on Space among the key A25-54 and A18-49 demos. The most recent episode to be shown, Christmas's The Husbands of River Song, was the most-watched Christmas special in the channel's history with 856,000 viewers, with its A25-54 and A18-49 demos making it the most-watched programme on Christmas Day on Canadian television.


Series 1-8 Doctor Who are currently available to stream via Netflix in Canada until their current license agreement to show the series ends; the streaming service has already ceased showing the series in the United States, and is expected to end in the United Kingdom at the end of April.

Actor, comedian, presenter, and all-round Doctor Who aficionado Toby Hadoke has produced a video in remembrance of those cast and crew who have been lost to the Doctor Who universe in 2015.

Television

ABC have confirmed that they intend to make this year's Christmas special, The Husbands of River Song, available in Australia staight after the United Kingdom on their iView service, from 5:15am (AEDT). This makes the country the first to be able to watch the story after its premiere (at least for early risers!).

FX in India have also confirmed that they will indeed show the special on Sunday in the usual Doctor Who premiere slot of 11:00pm IST.

The Husbands of River Song: Known Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Fri 25 Dec 2015	5:15pm
Australia	ABC iView	Sat 26 Dec 2015	5:15am AEDT	(6:15pm GMT)
United States of America	BBC America	Fri 25 Dec 2015	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Canada	SPACE	Fri 25 Dec 2015	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Asia Pacific	BBC Entertainment	Sat 26 Dec 2015	10:00am SGT	(2:00am GMT)
New Zealand	PRIME	Sat 26 Dec 2015	7:35pm NZDT	(6:35am GMT)
Australia	ABC	Sat 26 Dec 2015	7:30pm AEDT	(8:30am GMT)
South Africa	BBC First	Sat 26 Dec 2015	6:00pm SAST
Europe (Benelux)	BBC First	Sat 26 Dec 2015	8:05pm CET
India	FX	Sun 27 Dec 2015	11:00pm IST
United Kingdom	BBC Two	Tue 29 Dec 2015	2:50am	(British Signed Language)
Finland	YLE2	Sun 3 Jan 2016	7:10pm EET
Germany	FOX	Thu 28 Jan 2016	9:00pm CET	(dubbed into German)

Cinema

As well as the small screen, The Husbands of River Song will have a number of cinematic screenings, with the presentation including an exclusive interview with Alex Kingston plus a 15-minute behind-the-scenes "making of" featurette:

• In the United States, Fathom Events are showing the episode in cinemas all over the country over the course of 28th-29th December.
  
  
• In Canada, Cineplex will be showing the episode in select cinemas on the 28th December.
  
  
• In Denmark Cinemaxx are showing the package at 4:45pm and 7:00pm on the 28th December at their Copenhagen, Odense and Aarhus cinemas.]
  
  
• In Germany, Cinemaxx will be showing the package on 28th January at the same time as its premiere on television on FOX (the cinema will be presented in its original English soundtrack); theatres showing the episode are in Augsburg, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Dresden, Essen, Freiburg, Göttingen, Halle, Hamburg-Dammtor, Hannover, Heilbronn, Kiel, Krefeld, Magdeburg, Mülheim, München, Offenbach, Oldenburg, Regensburg, Sindelfingen, Stuttgart an der Liederhalle, Trier, Wolfsburg, Wuppertal, and Würzburg. (updated 26 Dec)
  
  
• In Austria, the Haydn English Cinema in Vienna will also be showing the episode on 28th January at 9:00pm.

Candy Jar Books has released a brand new Lethbridge-Stewart short story online for Christmas: The Fright Before Christmas (written by Tom Dexter with cover artwork by Shaun Russell, Adrian Salmon and Nathan Hudson) features alien spheres, Santa Claus and Buckingham Palace, and is available to download for free via their website here.

Hayley Cox, Senior Publishing Coordinator at Candy Jar Books, said:

Various bundles are available for the book series, both for the four published this year and those due to be published in 2016 (kicking off with Moon Blink by Sadie Miller): see the Candy Jar website for full details.

The complete list of stories in the package are: The Tomb of the Cybermen, Spearhead from Space, Genesis of the Daleks, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Earthshock, Rose, Blink, The Day of The Doctor, and Mummy on the Orient Express. Keen-eyed readers will note that the very first story An Unearthly Child isn't available either in this set or on the BBC Store in general at present, which has been down to ongoing rights issues; BBC Worldwide told us:

The official Doctor Who page on the BBC website will once again post a selection of images, clips, games and other goodies over the days leading up to Christmas in their Adventure Calendar.

The festive treats are unlocked at around midday daily, with the first being three wallpapers reflecting this Saturday's series finale, Hell Bent.

The BBC have launched the BBC Store, a new online "shop" aiming to open up a wealth of archive material, both old and new, to viewers in the United Kingdom to "buy and keep" digitally.

Marcus Arthur, MD of BBC Worldwide & ANZ, said:
Bal Samra, Commercial Director of the BBC said:
Dan Taylor-Watt, Head of BBC iPlayer said:


For Doctor Who the launch makes all nine series of the modern era available to purchase, either as each complete series or individual episodes (with the current series being added to as they are broadcast). The animated adventure The Infinite Quest is also available for purchase. For the 'classic' era there are currently an "editorial selection" available to represent each Doctor:

• First Doctor: The Edge of Destruction, The Aztecs, The Sensorites, Planet of Giants, The Rescue, The Web Planet, The Space Museum, The Ark, The Gunfighters, and The War Machines (The Daleks can also be found in the Search)
• Second Doctor: The Underwater Menace, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Enemy of the World, The Krotons, The Seeds of Death
• Third Doctor: all, barring Day of the Daleks, and Planet of the Daleks (Inferno and Death to the Daleks can also be found in the Search)
• Fourth Doctor: all, barring Terror of the Zygons, The Android Invasion, The Seeds of Doom, Destiny of the Daleks, and City of Death
• Fifth Doctor: all, barring Enlightenment, The Five Doctors, and Resurrection of the Daleks
• Sixth Doctor: The Twin Dilemma and The Two Doctors only
• Seventh Doctor: all, barring Paradise Towers and Remembrance of the Daleks
• Eighth Doctor: the TV Movie is currently unavailable

For factual programming, you can also find the 50th anniversary documentary The Ultimate Guide and the three programmes that made up Doctor Who's Greatest Moments; the 50th anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time is also listed. For the spin-off series, Torchwood has Series One, Children of Earth and Miracle Day (but not Series Two!), whilst none of The Sarah Jane Adventures are currently available.

Prices can range from £1.89 for single episodes through to £21.99 for Series Nine.

The Underwater Menace, the (currently) last "classic" Doctor Who story which was officially released on DVD yesterday in the United Kingdom, has also been made available digitally via iTunes.

In addition to the story itself (which comprises of the two existing episodes two and three and reconstruction of the first and last), the package also includes the behind-the-scenes documentary A Fishy Tale, and also both parts of Television Centre of the Universe (the first part of which originally featured on The Vistitation: Special Edition). The package is rounded off with the Photo Gallery.


The DVD itself also features commentaries and interviews presented on an alternative audio-track, and also includes the existing scenes from the two missing episodes that were recovered from Australian censor clips in 1998. The episodes themselves are presented after being restored via the VidFire process (which is not present in the digital versions).

You can read our review of the DVD here, and also purchase it via our Amazon Shop.

The BBC has launched Doctor Who: Game Maker as part of the corporation's Make it Digital season. The game will allow fans to create their own adventures by manipulating the Doctor Who universe. Characters which can be used in game include the Doctor, Clara, Missy, and various monsters and alien worlds from the series. Users can create their own game from scratch or use an existing template which includes classic game formats with a Doctor Who twist, including platform games, puzzles and racers.

Strax will be able to offer advice by showing users how to get started, change a game’s physics to make things fly, animate objects and even add special effects.

Games can be created on tablet devices and desktop computers, and there will soon be an Arcade area which will let people play games on mobile devices.

Jo Pearce, Creative Director, BBC Cymru Wales Interactive, says:



The Game Maker was produced in collaboration between BBC Cymru Wales, BBC Digital, Aardman Animations, Aerian and BBC Connected Studio, and is built using the BBC’s new mixital technology.

The global version of the BBC iPlayer is to close next month.

The service, which allows viewers outside the UK to watch BBC programmes, including Doctor Who, for a subscription fee, will cease on 26 June.

The service was available in Western Europe, Australia and Canada, although it never launched in the United States due to conflicts with some Pay TV channels which carry BBC America.

Some of the BBC's best known programmes, including Top Gear and Sherlock were available along with archive shows such as Gavin and Stacey, Fawlty Towers, Planet Earth and classic episodes of Doctor Who.

The closure was expected after BBC Worldwide announced in 2013 it intended to pull support for the Global iPlayer, saying it would instead focus on making material available via the BBC.com website. Users have been notified of the switch-off, and auto-renewing subscriptions are being cancelled.

BBC Worldwide issued a statement today via their website