The repeat of the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor, had an audience of 1.3 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme which stars David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and David Morrissey as Jackson Lake, had a 12.0% share of the audience and won its timeslot.

The repeat series continues today on BBC One with Planet of the Dead showing at 1.10pm.

The BBC One lunchtime repeat series continued on Wednesday when of the 2007 Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, had an audience of 1.4 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme which stars David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and Kylie Minogue as Astrid Peth, had a 12.7% share of the audience. The second half of the programme won its timeslot outrating Oliver Twist on ITV1.

The repeat series continues Thursday with The Next Doctor at 2.10pm.

The Tuesday BBC One lunchtime repeat of the 2006 Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, had an audience of 1.5 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme which stars David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, had a 12.3% share of the audience and won its time slot.

Meanwhile this year's Christmas special, A Christmas Carol has shot to the top of the US iTunes chart.

Doctor Who:A Christmas Carol had an average audience of 727,000 viewers for its first showing on BBC America on Christmas Day.

TV by the Numbers report the figure, which is for the 9-10.20pm showing on the channel. Last year the first part of The End of Time, which was shown the day after Christmas, achieved 671,000 viewers in the same timeslot.

Figures are not yet available for the other showings on the channel.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol achieved an Appreciation Index or AI score of 83.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. Although the score is down slightly on previous years, it was still the second highest AI on BBC One for Christmas Evening with just The Royle Family scoring more with 84.

The Sunday evening BBC Three repeat was watched by 527,000 viewers.

With overnight ratings available for the whole week, Doctor Who finished fourth, with a decent chance of moving up the chart when the official figures are released next week.

A Christmas Carol has debuted in Australia to good ratings. TV Tonight reports that Carol averaged 880,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. It won its time-slot, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating drama of the day and was the eighth highest rating programme of the day overall. Doctor Who at the Proms also rated a respectable 141,000 viewers at the early timeslot of 5pm.

The fast-tracking of the Christmas special has also attracted considerable local media, including a number of interviews with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Gillan has been interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, while Smith has spoken to the Herald-Sun, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sun-Herald where he expresses the hope of visiting Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald has also rated 'A Christmas Carol' its 'show of the week' with Michael Idato writing that it 'is sure to be the firmest and finest footprint in the life of the 11th doctor so far.'

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Boxing Day shoppers and restaurant goers got an unexpected surprise in the middle of Melbourne when the giant screen in Federation Square switched from the end of Australia's tragic day's play in the Ashes to a live feed from ABC TV showing the entirety of the 2010 Christmas Special!

Unofficial overnight figures show Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol was watched by an audience of 10.3 million on BBC One and BBC One HD last night.

The programme was the second highest rated for the day with EastEnders taking the top place with 11.4 million. The new Matt Lucas / David Walliams comedy, Come Fly With Me was third with just a few thousand viewers short of Doctor Who.

Once again the BBC triumphed with eight of the top ten places. Against Doctor Who ITV scheduled Emmerdale, which got 7.2 million watching. Doctor Who got a share of 39.8% of the total audience.

So far Doctor Who is the fourth most watched programme for the week, behind one Coronation Street and two EastEnders.

1.3 million watched the programme on BBC One HD.

Last year, Doctor Who achieved an overnight rating of 10.4 million watching on BBC One and BBC HD, and was third for the day.

On BBC Three Doctor Who Confidential had 207,000 watching, a 0.8% share of the audience.

It is important to note that the overnight figures are an initial estimate. Final figures, including those who record the programme and watch it within a week, will be published by BARB in around 8 days time.



NB: The 9am Christmas Day repeat of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Death of the Doctor, got an overnight rating of 1.4 million, far higher than its initial showing on the channel.

Matt Smith's debut as the Eleventh Doctor is the most watched programme on the BBC iPlayer for the year so far according to the BBC.

The BBC iPlayer celebrates its third Birthday this Christmas with over 1.3 billion requests being made throughout 2010. The Eleventh Hour accounted for 2.2 million of these hits with the rest of the series averaging around 1.5 million hits each.

Top Gear was the second most requested programme, with over half a million fewer requests than Doctor Who.

Daniel Danker, General Manager, Programmes and On Demand, said:
As part of the BBC's commitment to increase the reach of BBC iPlayer, the service is now available on around 40 different devices. For those who enjoy watching on-demand from the comfort of the living room, BBC iPlayer can be found on a range of TVs including Samsung, LG, and Sony Bravia, Blu-Ray disc players, Nintendo Wii and PS3 games consoles, and Virgin Media and Freesat set-top boxes. For those on the go, the BBC iPlayer mobile site can be accessed from phones and tablets including Apple iPads, iPhones and selected models of BlackBerry, Android, Nokia, Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson phones.

Last month we listed odds on shows broadcasting over Christmas Day from betting company Paddy Power; with one week to go before the festive programmes go head-to-head once more for the largest audience of the day, here's a sample of the odds you can find online as of tonight:

 
                                      Paddy Power    Ladbrokes      William Hill    Odds Bet
                                       On the Day   For the Week    For the Week   On the Day
BBC1  2:00  Top of the Pops             100/1         100/1            66/1            -
comb  3:00  The Queen                    33/1            -             20/1          33/1
BBC1  4:30  The Gruffalo                   -             -               -          100/1
BBC1  5:00  The One Ronnie               50/1          50/1            50/1         125/1
BBC1  6:00  Doctor Who                    9/2           9/4             4/1           5/1
ITV1  6:00  Emmerdale                    16/1          33/1            25/1         125/1
BBC1  7:00  Strictly Come Dancing        50/1            -               -          125/1
BBC2  7:00  Top Gear                     33/1          33/1            25/1            -
ITV1  7:00  Coronation Street             7/1           7/1             3/1          25/1
BBC1  8:00  Eastenders                    4/9           2/5             1/2           1/2
ITV1  8:00  All Star Family Fortunes       -             -            100/1         150/1
BBC1  9:00  The Royle Family              4/1           4/1             7/2           7/2
ITV1  9:00  Poirot                         -             -               -          150/1
BBC1 10:00  Come Fly With Me             10/1          20/1            16/1          28/1
BBC1 10:30  BBC News                     33/1           -                -             -

Other programmes are also under consideration for the Christmas week, which include Upstairs, Downstairs, The Nativity, Harry Hill's Christmas TV Burp, and Rock and Chips.

It is quite clear from the charts that the top four programmes for Christmas Day are consistently Doctor Who, Coronation Street, The Royle Family and Eastenders, with the latter ranked highest by all companies! All four performed well last year; though the Doctor Who top spot was 'muddied' by BBC1/BBCHD rating considerations, this year the results should be clear ...

... tell everyone you know to watch A Christmas Carol!

Final Ratings for Series four of The Sarah Jane Adventures are now available.

This year each episode premièred on the digital Children's Channel CBBC on a Monday and Tuesday before being repeated on the mainstream BBC One later in the week. The exception to this was The Nightmare Man which was repeated on BBC Two as The Commonwealth Games were being shown on BBC One.

The series has done incredibly well on CBBC with Part One of The Empty Planet now holding the record for the highest rated programme on CBBC. The series was boosted with the apperance of Matt Smith and Katy Manning in Death of the Doctor half way through the series, with most of the audience staying with the show until the end.

On BBC One the average rating for the series was 0.52 million or 0.49 million if the BBC Two showings are added in. The BBC One average for this timeslot for the year so far is 0.46 million. The fact that The Sarah Jane Adventures beats this, dispute this being the second showing of the week, is very impressive.

By comparison the average BBC One audience for other CBBC programmes was Junior Masterchief 0.72 million; Blue Peter 0.44 million; Gastronuts 0.42 million; Relic: Guardians of the Museum 0.42 million; Amimals at Work 0.29 million; My Genius Idea 0.27 million.

The highest combined rating was for Part One of Lost in Time which had a total of 1.57 million viewers across both channels. Last year the series peaked with 1.59 million watching The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.

This year the total average for the series was 1.29 million viewers. Last year the BBC One average was 1.01 million.