Thin Ice has debuted in Australia, averaging 473,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. The story was the second highest rating ABC drama of the day and the eleventh highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview, regional or time-shifted viewers.

Meanwhile, including time-shifted viewers, The Pilot averaged 594,000 consolidated viewers in the five major capital cities. With 99,000 extra viewers it was the second highest time-shifted program of the day (the highest time-shifted program had 116,000 extra viewers) and the seventh highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview or regional viewers.

The Pilot has debuted in Australia, averaging 495,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. The story was the second highest rating ABC drama of the day and the eighth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview, regional or time-shifted viewers.

Australian broadcaster ABC have announced a new half-hour panel show to tie in with the forthcoming tenth series of Doctor Who. Based around fans of the show, Whovians will be shown on Sunday evenings from 16th April at around 8:30pm on ABC2/iview, straight after the latest episode has been broadcast on ABC.


Fans who wish to be part of the audience are invited to register their interest via drwho.audience@abc.net.au.

BBC America have announced that Doctor Who returns to the channel on Saturday, April 15 at 9/8c.

The announcemnt follows the news from the BBC that the series will return to BBC One on the same day, for Peter Capaldi's last run as The Doctor.

The Doctor Who broadcast will be followed by US premiere of the Spin-Off Series Class at 10/9c.

Christmas Day: a time of festive presents, festive food, and festive telly!

For us, of course, the placement of the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special in the schedules is always eagerly anticipated, with this year's episode slotted into the late afternoon/early evening slot of 5:45pm. Previous years have seen it as early as 5:15pm last year to 7:30pm in 2013, but this year it is (hopefully!) bolstered by two of the BBC's other highest rated programmes, The Great British Bake-Off beforehand and Strictly Come Dancing afterwards.

In terms of direct competition, ITV is serving up its traditional slice of country life in Emmerdale, and Sky One is premiering its heavily trailed The Last Dragonslayer; on other channels BBC2 has the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show (5:40pm), Channel 4 has We're Going On A Bear Hunt and the film Home Alone (from 6pm), Channel 5 has Singin' in the Rain and then a repeat of Britain's Favourite Christmas Songs (from 6:15pm).

As of today, the odds of Doctor Who making the top spot sits at 22/1; unsurprisingly, Mrs Brown's Boys leads the way, being it has been the most popular show three out of the last four years (only beaten into second place last year by the finale of Downton Abbey!).

               BBC1                                       ITV     
 3:00pm   16/1 The Queen                             40/1 The Queen
 3:10pm    9/1 Frozen                                46/1 The Lion King
 4:45pm    5/1 The Great Christmas Bake Off
 4:55pm                                                   ITV News
 5:15pm                                              66/1 You've Been Framed
 5:45pm   22/1 Doctor Who                            60/1 Emmerdale
 6:45pm    2/1 Strictly Come Dancing                 50/1 For the Love of Dogs
 7:45pm                                                   ITV News
 8:00pm    6/1 Call the Midwife                      25/1 Coronation Street
 9:00pm                                              25/1 Maigret's Dead Man
 9:30pm    8/1 Eastenders
10:30pm    2/1 Mrs Brown's Boys
11:00pm  100/1 The Best of Tracey Ullman's Show     100/1 Love Actually

Predict the Ratings Competition

It's also time for our 'legendary' Predict the Ratings competition, which this year will give readers the chance to win The Return of Doctor Mysterio on DVD/Bluray upon its release, plus a copy of the BBC Book The Whoniverse by Justin Richards and George Mann.


The ratings and positions for 2014 and 2015 are presented here for comparison - recent years have seen a decline in television viewing over Christmas Day, with none of the programmes achieving the heady heights of several years ago.

To enter our competition, please send the following details to comp-ratings@doctorwhonews.net:

• Your name and preferred email address
• Your country of entry (full details will be requested only if you are the winner)
• Your guess at the final viewing figure to the nearest 10,000 (eg.9.99m)
• Your guess at the final position in the chart (eg. 1st) - this will only be used in the event of a tie-break

Terms and Conditions:

• The competition closes at 08:30 GMT, 26th December 2016.
• Only one entry will be accepted per person.
• The competition is open worldwide.
• BARB final figures are expected in early 2016; we will contact the winner once they have been published.

Superheroes around the World unite...

Of course it isn't just the United Kingdom that will enjoy the Doctor's latest adventure this festive period, as the episode will be broadcast in a number of countries within a couple of days of the British premiere:

The Return of Doctor Mysterio: known first broadcast details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sun 25 Dec 2016	5:45pm GMT
Middle East	BBC First	Sun 25 Dec 2016	8:45pm AST	(5:45pm GMT) simulcast!
Australia (online)	ABC iView	Mon 26 Dec 2016	5:45am AEDT	(6:45pm GMT)
Brazil	Syfy	Sun 25 Dec 2016	10:30pm BRST	(12:30am GMT)
United States of America	BBC America	Sun 25 Dec 2016	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Canada	SPACE	Sun 25 Dec 2016	9:00pm EST	(2:00am GMT)
Latin America	Syfy	Sun 25 Dec 2016	10:00pm CST	(04:00am GMT)
New Zealand	Prime	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:30pm NZDT	(6:30am GMT)
Australia	ABC	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:30pm AEDT	(8:30am GMT) also on ABC ME
Finland	YLE TV2	Mon 26 Dec 2016	7:00pm EET	(5:00pm GMT)
South Africa	BBC First	Wed 27 Dec 2016	8:00pm SAST	(6:00pm GMT)
United Kingdom	BBC Two	Fri 30 Dec 2016	2:30am GMT	(British Sign Language)

As well as television, The Return of Doctor Mysterio will also get big screen outings in Australia (26th December), New Zealand (26th December), Denmark (26th and 28th December), Canada (26th and 28th December), and the United States (27th and 29th December).

Various channels will celebrate the series during the next couple of weeks. BBC America kick off a mammoth repeat run dominating the channel from Tuesday 20th December, showing the majority of episodes since David Tennant took over the role in the lead up to the Christmas Special (and also including the premiere broadcast of The Power of the Daleks in colour on Christmas Day!). On Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, BBC Prime in Latin America will show the two series starring Peter Capaldi, whilst Prime in New Zealand repeat the most recent series. On Christmas Day, SPACE in Canada will show preceeding Christmas adventures. BBC HD in Poland doesn't have Mysterio scheduled for the immediate future, but will be running through the Doctor's regular adventures from Rose on the 23rd December through to the New Year.

Readers can always keep up with the ongoing adventures of the Doctor (and pals!) via This Week in Doctor Who.

The BBC has confirmed thet the Doctor Who spin-off series will be shown on BBC One this January

The first episode can be seen on Monday 9th January at 10.45pm

Class has previously only been available in the UK via the BBC Three channel, which, since the 16th February this year, has only been available online.

No firm details are available for the number of viewers who have watched the series on BBC Three, but no episode has managed to make the Weekly BARB Top 50 list of downloaded programs, meaning less than around 60,000 watched the episode in the two days after release. It is believed the audience for each episode was between 20,000 and 60,000 viewers.

The BBC will be hoping for a much bigger audience for the BBC One showing, where the late night timeslot has an average of just over 2 million viewers.

The series is due to be shown on BBC America this spring

BBC America have made a late change in their schedules for this evening to include a five minute segment for this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special at 10:30pm EDT:


No other information is available at present, though it is possible that this will be a television screening of the recently released behind-the-scenes video.

ABC Australia has confirmed the new Doctor Who spin-off, Class, will broadcast in Australia, shortly after its UK debut.

The first two episodes of the series will be released on iView as soon as they becomes available in the UK. Class is due to be released on BBC Three sometime on Saturday 22nd October.

In addition the episodes will be screened on ABC2 on Monday, 24 October

Class is a young adult series set in Coal Hill Academy. The first episode will feature current Doctor Peter Capaldi.

Class has also been confirmed for transmission in Canada on 22 October. BBC America will also screen the series, but have not yet confirmed an airdate.

Canadian broadcaster SPACE have confirmed via Twitter that they will be broadcasting the new spin-off series Class from 22nd October, the same day the series launches in the United Kingdom.