BARB have now issued the official ratings for the Week Ending 26 December, confirming A Christmas Carol has a final rating of 12.11 million viewers. Once figures for those watching on HD are factored in, the programme finished fourth for the week, behind EastEnders, Coronation Street and the new Matt Lucas and David Walliams comedy, Come Fly With Me.

Only eight other Doctor Who episodes have ranked fourth or higher in the weekly charts, including Matt Smith's first story, The Eleventh Hour.

Thank you to all those who entered our Christmas Competition.

The standard was high with over 25% of answers within half a million of the correct answer.
The highest guess was an optimistic 15.48 million and the lowest a pessimistic 7.4 million.

Only one person, Peter Hart of Oxford in the United Kingdom, correctly guessed the exact number of 12.11 million.

He wins an Eleventh Doctor Christmas Adventure Set and as a bonus for guessing the exact number we will be sending a DVD of A Christmas Carol.

We have five runners up who also win an Eleventh Doctor Christmas Adventure Set.

• Chris Chalmers of London (12.10 million)
• Russell Reinke of Lake Wales, Florida (12.12 million)
• Kevin James Kirby of Camarillo, California (12.12 million)
• Lyndsey Robinson of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire (12.08 million)
• Sharon Vincent of Carterton, Oxfordshire (12.14 million)

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One is being offered as a free download as part of iTunes UK's "12 Days of Christmas". The episode, also available in HD, will only be free for 24 hours on 4th January.

Click here to download from iTunes.

Doctor Who returns to Italy next month, when the state broadcaster RAI brings the show to their entertainment channel RAI 4 available on digital terrestrial television in Italy and digital satellite television through Tivù Sat.

The channel has acquired all five series of modern Doctor Who as well as the specials. Day and time of broadcast are, at present, still under development but the channel has confirmed via their Facebook page that the series will start sometime in January.

The first three series were previously shown on satellite television in Italy and RAI will be using the same dubbed transmission tapes when they show the series. The fourth and fifth series will be new to the country. The translation is being handled by BBC Worldwide.

For a full roundup of Doctor Who around the world, see our sister site This Week In Doctor Who.

The BBC has released the fourth Episode in The Adventure Games Series: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada in the United Kingdom.

The game was expected on Christmas Day, but today has been made available to download from the BBC Website.

The game is written by Phil Ford - author of the first 'gamisode' in the series, City of the Daleks and is available in a Windows and a Mac version.

As with the previous games, Shadows of the Vashta Nerada will be available for purchase worldwide on the PC platform at a later date from Direct2Drive, who will release both this and the third game TARDIS together as a bundle; however, the Mac version will not be available outside the UK.

The Doctor Who Confidential preview of A Christmas Carol is now available via the Red Button service on Freeview and Sky/Virgin media.

The preview is Day One of a video blog by Charlie McDonnell, who explores the Doctor Who set. Further segments are expected at 6pm each day, leading up to the broadcast of the episode itself on Christmas Day.

The schedule for the red button service is listed here.


The preview is also available on the BBC's YouTube Channel:

The Doctor Who News Page is offering readers a chance to win the Eleventh Doctor Christmas Adventure Set which is released next week, in our Christmas Competition.

The set includes two 5-inch action figures: The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond with police uniform and also features a non-electronic TARDIS with opening front doors.

Five Gift sets are up for grabs.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us your prediction for the total BBC One audience, to the nearest 10,000 viewers, for the Christmas Day showing of A Christmas Carol.

Just to clarify, we are looking for the final confirmed audience as published by BARB in January. This figure includes those who record the programme and watch it within one week and it includes those watching on BBC One HD. It does not include those watching on iPlayer.

Please also give your estimate for the final figure for the BBC Three/BBC HD Christmas Day showing of Doctor Who Confidential. This figure will be used as a tie breaker in the event of a draw for the prize. In the event of a further draw the winner will be chosen at random.

To help you estimate the figure, ratings for the previous episodes of Doctor Who transmitted on Christmas Day were:

1965 - 5.50pm - The Feast of Steven - 7.90 million
2005 - 7.00pm - The Christmas Invasion - 9.84 million
2006 - 7.00pm - The Runaway Bride - 9.30 million
2007 - 6.50pm - Voyage of the Damned - 13.31 million
2008 - 6.00pm - The Next Doctor - 13.10 million
2009 - 6.00pm - The End of Time Part One - 12.04 million

Entries should be sent to the Doctor Who News Page at doctorwhocompetitions@gmail.com - please include your answers, name, address and daytime contact number.

Only one entry is allowed per person.

Entries must be received by 6pm, 25th December 2010 UK Time.

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In the meantime, there are a number of other Doctor Who related competitions online that you might also wish to enter, listed below:

Site	Closing Date	Competition
Toxic Magazine	15th Dec	Win a Nintendo DS and a copy of Evacuation Earth, with the game for five runners up. Registration required, and restricted to under-18s
National Geographic	15th Dec	Win Evacuation Earth with a DSi. This one is open to under 16s
Radio Times	21st Dec	Win a Nintendo Wii console, and a copy of Return to Earh; simply answer 15 questions on television trivia
Love Offers	22nd Dec	Win a sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who
Fortean Times	22nd Dec	Win one of three sonic-screwdrivers
DrWho Online	31st Dec	Win one of three copies of The Complete Series Five boxed set to win.
Eye of Horus	10th Jan	Win one of ten copies of Meglos.
Love Offers	12th Jan	Win one of five copies of Return to Earth.
Webuser	12th Jan	Win one of five copies of Return to Earth Wii games to win.
Whovian Net	n/a	Win one of three copies of the official 2011 Calendar when they reach 1000 Twitter Followers
Eye of Horus	31st Jan	Win one of ten copies of The Mutants.

 

The BBC has confirmed this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol with be shown on BBC One and BBC One HD, on Christmas Day at 6pm.

Final schedules were signed off this afternoon. Doctor Who has been shown at 6pm on Christmas Day for the last two years.

This year Doctor Who will be preceded by The One Ronnie, a variety show starring Ronnie Corbett and will be followed by Christmas Editions of Strictly Come Dancing, featuring John Barrowman, and EastEnders.

The programme has already been confirmed for transmission on Christmas Day in the United States on BBC America at 9pm ET and on Boxing Day in Canada on SPACE at 9pm ET and in Australia on ABC 1 at 7.30pm.

Do not click on the following links, if you want to avoid spoilers for the upcoming series of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

According to slightly inaccurate stories in today's Guardian, Digital Journal and elsewhere, a bit of Doctor Who history is about to be rewritten.

The cause of all the speculation is a throwaway line in Episode Six of the current series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. The episodes were screened at a special preview held at the BFI on London's South Bank Tuesday evening. After the screening Elisabeth Sladen and Katy Manning were part of a panel talking about the series.

A number of news outlets have picked up from the Radio Times that the British actor Martin Shaw (The Professionals, Inspector George Gently) turned down the chance to play James Bond in the late 1970s. Digital Journal, however, leads on the fact that Shaw would consider playing the Doctor, albeit if the commitment was a lot less than is currently expected of Doctor Who's leading actor!

Elsewhere in Radio Times, Phil Collinson is interviewed about his plans for Coronation Street as it approaches its 50th anniversary and beyond, which has been reported here. RT attributes Collinson's savviness on Who under Russell T Davies as being part of the reason ITV Studios have entrusted him with Corrie's birthday celebrations, which Digital Journal has picked up on, too.

Steven Moffat, meanwhile, has been talking in Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book and Doctor Who Magazine about the 2010 Christmas special and the cliffhanger between the two 2011 series (Easter and autumn) of  Doctor Who. His comments have already been picked up by a number of outlets, including Den of Geek, Digital Journal and Digital Spy.

Nominations have opened for the 2011 National Television Awards, with Doctor Who one of 33 nominees in the Best Drama category along with Steven Moffat's other hit from the summer, Sherlock.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are both nominated for Best Drama Performance, along with 48 others.

Initial voting is now open until Monday 11 October and the winners will be announced at the ceremony on ITV1 in January. Doctor Who has won the last five awards for Best Drama.