A brief update on ratings for various Doctor Who related programmes this weekend. Saturday night's installment ofDoctor Who Confidential at 7.45pm on BBC3 was watched by 747,400 viewers, with a 5.9% audience share; it was followed at 8.15pm by a repeat installment of "Confidential" (episode three from this season) which was viewed by 402,200 viewers with a 3.0% audience share.

On Sunday night, the BBC3 repeat of Love & Monsters was seen by 700,000 viewers, with a 5.2% share, followed immediately by the repeat of Saturday night's "Confidential" in "Cut Down" edition, viewed by 519,000 viewers (3% share). The Sunday episode repeat was the day's most watched programme on non-terrestrial/satellite channels.

The audience appreciation index (AI) figure for "Love & Monsters" was reported at 76... a low for the season by tied with the first season's "Rose" and "The End of the World".

Ratings for Love & Monsters, the eleventh episode of the new season, are in: according to the overnight viewing figures, 6.22 million people tuned in to see the episode, with a total audience share of 38.3%. The episode was Saturday's #1 most watched program in the UK in terms of number of viewers, though the episode was second on the list in total audience share (World Cup Match of the Day Live, which aired much earlier in the day, had a 38.9% share but only 3.1 million viewers at that time.) As usual, individual ratings on the five-minute period charts show the episode peaked at 7.15 million viewers in the final five minutes of the episode. The episode was also #12 on the list of most watched programmes for the week, after episodes of "Coronation Street," "EastEnders" and several instances of World Cup programming (including, so far, the week's top rated England v. Trinidad & Tobago match on Thursday.) More details later. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon' and Andy Parish)

CBC Television announced today that Canada will see series two of Doctor Who this coming October. "New Earth," the first episode of the new season, will premiere on Monday, October 9 at 8:00pm (8:30pm in Newfoundland); further episodes will likely air weekly on Monday nights. (Last season's episodes aired on Tuesdays.) More information about the network's fall schedules can be found here.

The final ratings for The Impossible Planet, broadcast a week ago Saturday, have been announced by the BARB: adjusted for time-shifted viewing, Doctor Who scored 6.32 million viewers, to be ranked #18 for the week in total series viewings and #8 in weekly series (allowing for multiple episodes of shows), after "Coronation Street" (which held the top ratings slot for the week of only 9.56 million viewers; all shows were skewed downward in total viewers with the onset of summer), "Match of the Day Live," "EastEnders," "New Tricks," "Heartbeat," "Emmerdale" and "Casualty".

In other ratings news: Doctor Who was first on BBC3 for the week ending 4 June, with the Sunday 4 June airing of "The Impossible Planet" scoring 689,000 viewers according to the BARB timeshifts, which also scored seventh on the list of total non-terrestial channel broadcasts for the week. The Saturday night broadcast of "Doctor Who Confidential" was second for the week on BBC3 with 551,000 viewers; the Friday night 2 June repeat of "The Idiot's Lantern" was fifth with 416,000 viewers; and Sunday night 4 June's repeat of "Confidential" was seventh on BBC3's list for the week with 393,000 viewers. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon')

Overnight ratings for The Satan Pit, the season's ninth new Doctor Who episode of Doctor Who, are in: the episode was watched by 5.5 million viewers with a 35.6% audience share. Though the ratings are down from last week's series low (5.94 million), the audience share is still high and the show is relatively strong given the rest of the day's numbers: on this summer Saturday, Doctor Who was third overall on the Top 30 Programs by Audience on all UK networks, behind "World Cup Match of the Day Live" and "Casualty", and second overall for today by audience share totals, behind the World Cup program (which had enormous share/ratings numbers for UK programming).

Also tonight: the ninth episode of Doctor Who Confidential on BBC Three scored 445,200 viewers, with a 3.6% audience share (number two for the day's non-terrestrial channels). More details later. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)

ABC TV Australia has begun screening adverts for the forthcoming debut of series two there. Using the tag, "Do you fancy a Christmas in July?", with clips from "The Christmas Invasion" shows, the 30-second promo doesn't identify the specific date the series is premiering on, only noting that the show is "returning soon". However, as we already reported it will be broadcast starting 8 July on ABC. The ABC website also has preview information. (Thanks to Murray Harper, William Binnie, Adam Kirk and Niall Doran)

Final viewing figures are in from the BARB for The Idiot's Lantern, the seventh episode of the new season, broadcast on 27 May: 6.76 million viewers are said to have tuned into the broadcast, including time-shifted viewers. The episode was seventh highest on the list of total television shows (adjusted for multiple episodes, behind episodes of "Coronation Street," "EastEnders," "New Tricks," "Emmerdale" and "Heartbeat" and the special "Full Length and Fabulous: The Beckham World Cup Party") and eighteenth on the list of the week's total broadcasts. However, the episode only scored a bit less than 2% of a smaller viewing audience than the corresponding episode the previous season, "The Doctor Dances".

Some other BARB final ratings figures are now available. The original broadcast of Doctor Who Confidential on the same night as "The Idiot's Lantern" scored, according to the BARB, 453,000 viewers; the Sunday night repeat of Doctor Who on BBC3 (28 May) had 642,000 viewers, placing it #14 in the list of the top twenty non-terrestrial broadcasts for the week. Also, the repeat of the prior episode, The Age of Steel the night before the next, Friday 26 May, had a total of 394,000 viewers.

Meanwhile, for this past weekend's broadcasts, the Sunday night repeat of The Impossible Planet, the eighth episode of the season, on BBC3 was watched by 662,000 viewers (3.8% audience share) and "Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down," the reduced repeat version, had 421,000 viewers (2.1% share). Doctor Who was the most watched programme on BBC3 on Sunday. Additionally, the night before the broadcast of "The Impossible Planet," Friday night's (2 June) repeat of "The Idiot's Lantern," was watched by 407,500 viewers (2.6% share) while the repeat of "Confidential" originally broadcast with that episode was watched by 212,800 viewers (8.3% share). These figures are overnights reported by Viewingfigures (as opposed to BARB final ratings, which will be available next week.)

Finally, another piece of news regarding "The Impossible Planet": Preliminary figures indicate that it achieved an AI (audience appreciation index) figure of 85, while the AI figure for the broadcast of "Doctor Who Confidential" the same night had an AI figure of 83. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)

Overnight ratings for The Impossible Planet, this season's eighth new episode of Doctor Who, show that the episode was viewed by 5.94 million viewers. While the average numbers are down, the lowest single rating for the new series to date (though by a slim margin), the episode scored a 39.8% audience share, a significant boost from the previous weekend. The discrepancy: the total television audience at 7pm was also the lowest since the show began (only 12.4 million viewers watching at that time). The episode itself peaked at 6.78 million viewers in its final quarter-hour. Doctor Who was #2 on the top thirty by audience and top thirty by share lists, beaten only in actual numbers by an episode of Casualty at 8.15 (which itself only scored 6.5 million viewers).

Meanwhile, on BBC Three, the sixth instalment of Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 542,100 viewers (4.7% audience share), an increase from the prior week. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)

The BBC Press Office issued Programme Information (link) for 17-23 June on Friday, with an interview with guest starMarc Warren leading the promotion for episode 10, Love & Monsters, to be aired on 17 June. The actor, who plays Elton Pope in Love & Monsters, notes that "Elton is looking for the Doctor, who he last saw when he was four years old when his mother died, and has been searching for him ever since. He meets a group of people who get together every week to talk about their sightings of the Doctor with an aim of trying to find him, and they become great friends." Warren says that he was "gobsmacked" when he first read the script - "it was all this Elton kid... I couldn't really believe it. It must be quite unusual for Doctor Who to have a [guest] part that's so central - but it definitely worked out well for me." Also released by the Press Office is the Programme Copy for the episode (link) which is reproduced below.