The Impossible Astronaut had a final consolidated audience figure of 8.86 million viewers, a 43.3% share of the total TV audience, according to figures released by Barb.

The number includes those who recorded the programme for viewing within 7 days of its initial showing. The figure is over two million higher than the initial overnight reported rating. A full report for the week, which will reveal the shows position in the weekly charts will be released by Barb on Tuesday.

The figures do not include those watching on iPlayer, where over 300,000 accessed the programme within the first two days following transmission.

The Impossible Astronaut had roughly the same final audience as other new series openers, excluding those with a new Doctor. New Earth had 8.6 million, Smith And Jones 8.7m and Partners In Crime 9.1 million.

An additional 0.47 million watched the BBC Three repeat on Friday.

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Meanwhile in Australia the show was the fourth watched programme of the day with around 0.86 million viewers in the five capital cities. The rating similar to that achieved by A Christmas Carol, shown on Boxing Day. It was only outranked by news programmes.

Both the US broadcast on BBC America and the Australian broadcast on ABC1 of the new series of Doctor Who have included an additional introduction before the main opening titles. This has been presented in a form of a reprise through the eyes of Amy of her adventures with the Doctor to date.


(with thanks to Anthony Swan

5.4 million viewers tuned in to watch Day of the Moon in the UK yesterday, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The rating is a drop of a million on the series opener, not helped by the early timeslot and the sunny weather across the UK for the Bank Holiday weekend. However Doctor Who was still the second most watched programme on British television Saturday Night, with Britain's Got Talent once more topping the charts with 9.5 million. Nothing else on Saturday night achieved more then 5.0 million viewers.

Up against Doctor Who, New People Do the Funniest Things on ITV1 was watched by 1.9 million, up half a million on the programme shown last week.

Doctor Who inherited just 1.7 million viewers from its predecessor, Don't Scare the Hare, which, with an average of just 1.4 million viewers has lost a quarter of its viewers since last week, not surprisingly as the premier show achieved one of the poorest AI scores of all time. Doctor Who's audience peaked at 5.7 million for the last 15 minutes, with the BBC One audience dropping to 2.9 million as the programme finished.

Od the audience, 0.67 million watched on BBCOne HD.

Doctor Who is currently 35th for the week. although this position should change substantially when final figures are released and a top twenty place is still possible.

On BBC Three, Doctor Who Confidential had 0.36 million viewers, with an additional 32,000 watching on BBC HD, a drop of 200,000 on last week, not helped by the gap between the end of Doctor Who on BBC One and the start of Doctor Who Confidential on BBC Three.

As reported earlier in the week, the BBC have now released a "prequel" for next week's episode, The Curse of the Black Spot, featuring a journal entry from the Captain of the good ship Fancy (played by Hugh Bonneville):



In addition, the episode trailer is now available to watch, alongside the "Next Time" trailer from this week's episode, Day of the Moon:

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The Curse of the Black Spot will premiere on BBC1/BBC1HD at 6:15pm, 7th May in the United Kingdom; then follows on SPACE in Canada at 8:00pm ET, BBC America in the United States at 9:00pm ET, and on ABC1 in Australia at 7:30pm on the 14th May.


 

The BBC have released a small clip from tonight's Doctor Who Confidential which features Matt Smith demonstrating his prowess with a portable camera!



Doctor Who Confidential is on tonight on BBC Three and BBC HD at 7:00pm.

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Meanwhile, BBC America released the fifth in their series of online behind-the-scenes features; this edition of Doctor Who Insider is entitled On The Set:

Monopoly is about to have a Doctor Who makeover this summer, with Hasbro releasing a version of the long-lived board game dedicated to the Time Lord.

Listed by Forbidden Planet, the game is limited to 5000 copies, and will feature "all your favourite heroes, villains, monsters, planets and places."

It is due to be released on 1st August 2011.

Today saw the BBC release two trailers featuring clips from the new series of Doctor Who and Torchwood!

The first trailer aired after the morning coverage of the Royal Wedding showcasing popular BBC shows to the tune Bring Me Sunshine, popularised and sung by comedy duo Morecambe and Wise; captioned When it's worth watching, watch it with us, as well as Doctor Who and Torchwood the trailer featured classic shows like One Foot in the Grave, the aforementioned Morecambe and Wise and Only Fools and Horses, and more recent shows such as Gavin and Stacey, Merlin and Sherlock.



The second trailer aired after this evening's edition of The One Show, and focused on a number of shows that will be broadcast over the course of the summer; captioned Original British Drama, shows covered included The Shadow Line (with Christopher Eccleston), Exile (with John Simm), The Night Watch (with Michael Gambon and Bill Nighy), Luther (with Paul McGann), and of course Doctor Who and Torchwood.



No date was given for when Torchwood would be broadcast, though it is expected in July 2011.

Following on from the first "prequel" for The Impossible Astronaut, the BBC have announced the second of their mini-episode preludes, this time providing an introduction to episode three, The Curse of the Black Spot, due to be broadcast on 7th May.

The full prequel will be available from here and the BBC website on 6:45pm Saturday, straight after the conclusion to Day of the Moon.

The BBC's Doctor Who website have launched a new quiz, entitled The Game of Rassilon.


The quiz features clips, images, exclusive new footage with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, plus other members of the cast and crew. It is aimed to test the player's knowledge on Doctor Who, with different questions every time, and themed around the episode on television that week (currently The Impossible Astronaut).

The game can be played here.

To celebrate the return of Doctor Who, last week's Timeout London (21-27 April) published six different covers depicting the characters from The Impossible Astronaut - previewed in that issue - plus interviews with the stars and head writer Steven Moffat.

The magazine is now offering all six covers online worldwide as a collectors set, which can bought via their Timeout Shop.



Previously, the magazine celebrated Doctor Who in December 2009, when it published covers for each the ten Doctors that had played the role to date.