A Town Called Mercy had an overnight audience of 6.6 million viewers, a share of 29.1% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was third for the day, behind the big entertainment hitters, The X Factor with 9.0 million and the launch show of Strictly Come Dancing which has 8.0 million watching, providing a strong lead in for the Doctor.

Against Doctor Who, ITV1's Red and Black managed 3.6 million viewers, while Dad's Army on BBC Two had 1.9 million watching.

Last year's third story of the autumn, The Girl Who Waited, had 6.0 million watching with a lower audience share while the 2011 launch of Strictly Come Dancing had an audience of 7.6 million viewers.

The rating for Doctor Who puts it at 14th place for the week, with Sunday's ratings still to come, although final consolidated figures, which will be available next week, should see this position rise.

The BBC have released their latest 'confidentialette' to accompany the new episode, A Town Called Mercy; the behind-the-scenes video takes a look at how the Doctor galloped a horse and the creation of a cyborg.

Plus the trailer for next week's The Power of Three is now online to view.

It's an hour before the Doctor travels to the Wild West in A Town Called Mercy on BBC1, so here's a quick roundup of the videos released online to promote the episode over the course of the last week:

A special preview for newly restored and recreated episodes to appear on forthcoming DVDs in the Doctor Who range will take place on Sunday 30th September at Riverside Studios in West London.

Presented by the DWAS with the co-operation of BBC Worldwide, the free event will screen selected episodes to highlight how colour-recovery and re-mastering techniques have brought new life to the Jon Pertwee stories The Ambassadors of Death and Inferno, and how especially created animation finally enables fans to watch rather than listen to the missing episodes of the William Hartnell story The Reign of Terror.

There will also be panels with the team behind the new versions.

Full details on the event and how to request tickets - only available by post - can be found via the DWAS website. Please note that this event is now full.


The DVD release of The Ambassadors of Death is currently scheduled for 1st October in the UK(R2) and 9th October in the US/Canada(R1).

The first part of the BBC Four adaptation of Room At The Top starring Jenna-Louise Coleman has been given a confirmed broadcast date of Wednesday 26th September.

The two-part drama was made nearly two years ago by Great Meadow Productions and should have been shown in April 2011 but had to be shelved until a copyright dispute between the estate of the late author, John Braine, and Remus Films could be settled. It will air from 9pm to 10pm.

Coleman plays the role of Susan Brown and Kevin McNally that of her father, and a number of pictures of Coleman in the production have been released:



The second and concluding part is currently unplaced in the schedules for the week beginning 29th September.

Yesterday's premiere of Asylum of the Daleks in New Zealand was watched by 171,690 viewers on Prime, making it the highest-rated programme on the channel for the day and the second highest rated episode for the Eleventh Doctor so far - The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe achieved 175,970 viewers on 19th January.

The premiere of Let's Kill Hitler, broadcast around this time on 15th September, achieved 117,100 viewers.


For other channels on the night, Embarrassing Bodies on TV2 won the time-slot with 380,860 viewers; 307,170 watched The X Factor USA (started at 7:30-9:30pm average), 224,900 watched TV One's Four Weddings, 74,770 watched Family Guy on Four (9:00pm start), 64,450 watched the ITM Cup Rugby on Sky Sport 1 (7:35-9:15pm average), 38,600 watched Code on Maori TV, 34,410 watched Law and Order Criminal Intent on The Box, and Tower Heist on Sky Movies 1 was watched by 21,250. Top show of the day was One News on TV One, with 678,810 tuning in.

The BBC have published details for the finale of this batch of Doctor Who episodes, The Angels Take Manhattan, which is due to be broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom on Saturday 29th September. The time of the episode is yet to be confirmed, and will be finalised next week.

The BBC have now confirmed that the fourth episode of the current series of Doctor Who, The Power of Three, will be broadcast on BBC1 at 7:30pm on Saturday 22nd September. As in previous weeks, the episode will face competition on ITV1 from Red or Black? and The X Factor; on the other main channels, BBC2 continues its run of Dad's Army, Channel 4 launch a new dating game show called Baggage, whilst Channel 5 travels to the wild west in the film Maverick.

Three images have been released to promote the episode, which also features guest star Jemma Redgrave who plays the role of Kate Stewart. A variety of additional new images will be revealed next week.

This week's Doctor Who Adventures magazine comes with either a squirty bow tie or a build-your-own TARDIS kit.
Issue 286 of Doctor Who Adventures is out in the UK from 13 September.

A new composition has been unveiled today to commemorate the BBC's historic Bush House, which ceased broadcasting in July. It was composed by Matthew Herbert, who has been appointed the creative director of the New Radiophonic Workshop, the successor to the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop that itself closed some fourteen years ago.

The piece was commissioned as the former World Service headquarters sees much of its old equipment being sold off in auction over the coming week; talking about the closure and its relevance to the Radiophonic Workshop, Herbert said:
The piece can be listened to via the right button, or on THE SPACE website.


The New Radiophonic Workshop was formed this year as part of an initiative undertaken by THE SPACE, an experimental digital Arts portal managed by Arts Council England and developed in partnership with the BBC. The workshop's first commission was The Sound of The Space, a compilation that brings together some twenty-five themes from across the portal, and can be listened to via their website.

An accomplished musician and contributor to fellow artists' projects and films, Matthew Herbert has also been credited with pioneering the use of 'found' sound in modern electronic music, that is, the integration of naturally occurring sound within compositions.

Joining him in the new Workshop initiative are music/sound designer Yann Seznec, composer Max de Wardener, broadcast technologist Tony Churnside, musician Mica Levi, theatre director Lyndsey Turner, and creative technologist Patrick Bergel.

Unlike the original workshop, which was based in Maida Vale, the new one is described as "a virtual institution, an online portal and forum for discussion around the challenges of creating new sounds, and bringing together music composition and software design."

Speaking of the resurrection of a pioneering institution, Herbert said:

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

The inspiration of "radiophonic" aware BBC producers such as Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram, the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was founded in 1958, headed by Briscoe with technical assistant Dick Mills. The Workshop was at the cutting edge of electronic sound and music development, and attracted the talents of composers including Delia Derbyshire (who realised the original Doctor Who theme tune) and Brian Hodgson (who created many of the special sounds heard in the early years of the show).

THE SPACE have provided a short video interview with the Radiophonic Workshop team, which originates from a Tomorrow's World from 1965.