Matt Smith's debut series has concluded in Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's decision to 'fast-track' the latest series of Doctor Who has been vindicated by excellent ratings, the series receiving its highest consistent Australian ratings since its return in 2005 (and probably ever). The series averaged 928,000 viewers in the five major capital cities over thirteen weeks (these figures also do not include regional, time-shifted and iView viewers) and was normally the ABC's top-rating program of the day. TV Tonight reports that The Big Bang averaged 976,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, again despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. Yet again it was the ABC's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news and Little Dorrit, being the ninth highest rating program for the day overall. The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated an exceptional 732,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

Final figures are now available for the BBC HD showing of Doctor Who: The Big Bang and give the episode an official rating on the channel of 0.58 million viewers. This, along with the previously reported figure of 6.12 million viewers on BBC One, gives the episode a total rating of 6.7 million viewers. Full details for the week are still not available, but it is likely this will make Doctor Who the 10th most watched programme of the week.

Final figures for the whole series show that, despite recent press speculation, Doctor Who is still achieving remarkable ratings for the BBC and remains one of its most successful products. Once consolidated figures are published then the five series of the show, shown since the return in 2005, have all achieved remarkably similar average ratings of around 8 million viewers. Matt Smith’s first series just out-rates David Tennant’s first two series but comes behind Tennant’s last series. The variable earlier start times given to Series 31 compared to recent series appear to have resulted in more of the audience recording the show for later viewing, meaning lower overnights, but balanced when final consolidated figures are published

In terms of Chart position, once HD figures are included, Doctor Who has finished in the weekly top twenty throughout the series, with seven episodes finishing in the top ten. The high was 3rd place for The Eleventh Hour and the low was 20th for The Lodger, shown against World Cup football. The average chart placing was 12th, which again is higher that achieved by three of the previous four series.

One of the big successes of the recent series has been the take up on iPlayer. This year was the first time the whole series has been available during its run. Over 2 million have now accessed The Eleventh Hour and it has become by far the highest accessed programme in the BBC iPlayer history. The iPlayer simply measures those who have accessed the programme and no data is available to covert this figure to ratings in the conventional sense. However the figure does give an indication of how popular the programme is with the audience.


Full ratings for the series can be found in Gallifrey Base.

The 'fast-tracked' Doctor Who continues its strong ratings in Australia. TV Tonight reports that The Pandorica Opens averaged 890,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, again despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. Yet again it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news and Little Dorrit (the latter which only averaged 645,000 viewers in the five major capitals) being the eleventh highest rating program for the day overall. The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated an excellent 670,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

Final figures for the final episode of the recent series of Doctor Who, The Big Bang, are partially available from BARB, with the BBC One showing getting 6.12 million viewers.

This was enough to make it the ninth most watched programme of the week for BBC One.

Final figures for BBC HD have not yet been released and will hopefully be available later in the week, at which time a final chart position can be calculated.

The final audience for the Sunday repeat of The Big Bang was 0.72 million.

Full ratings for the series so far can be found in Gallifrey Base.

It's a week today since Series 5 (or Series 1 or Series 31, depending on which counting system you subscribe to) ended in the UK, yet it seems only yesterday that we were all eagerly anticipating Matt Smith and Steven Moffat's first season of Doctor Who.

Viewers in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere still have the anticipation of what's to come (assuming you haven't seen the episodes over the Internet already and, assuming you haven't spoilered yourself with the deluge of articles appearing everywhere!).

And a lot's happened in the seven days since the end of The Big Bang in the UK, when we found out that the crack in time ... oops, spoilers!

But - be warned! - a hefty dose of salt may be needed before reading some of what follows ...

Matt joined Orbital on stage at Glastonbury for "Dr Who", their rendition of the show's theme tune. Meanwhile, he had to put up with a lot of nonsense from the British tabloid press concerning so-called "falling ratings" - which doesn't actually appear to stand up to much scrutiny - and William Hill slashing the odds on him remaining on the show.

Then, apparently, Moffat's script for the 2010 Christmas Special went missing and several of the writers for next year were announced (see Digital Spy).

On a positive note, as we reported on Wednesday, Barbara Kidd, who previously worked on Who episodes involving Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison, is returning to the show for the 2011 series.

The monster line up for the Doctor Who Live tour details were confirmed and Neil Gaiman Tweeted that he'd completed his Who script.

And, then there are the "facts" that Matt wants both Eric Cantona and Ian McKellen to appear in the show as baddies! See this article for more details.

Last, but not least, is the revelation that Johnny Depp has "definitely" signed up to play the Doctor in a big-budget Hollywood movie, written by Russell T Davies and featuring the Daleks and the Ebola virus! The BBC subsequently clarified otherwise.

There are masses of stories relating to this rumour, but this one on Digital Journal at least takes a more sober and detailed look, including on the history of Doctor Who movies, proposed and actual.

Happy times and places!

UPDATE 12 July 2010
BARB have updated the figures sent to broadcaster to include a missing episode of EastEnders, moving Doctor Who down to fifth place on BBC One and Tenth place overall.


Final figures for Episode Twelve of Doctor Who, The Pandorica Opens, show the story was watched by 7.57 million viewers.

On BBC One it is understood the programme got 6.94 million watching, enough to make it the fourth most watched programme of the week for BBC One, just being beaten by three matches in the Fifa World Cup.

As previously reported an additional 0.635 million watched on BBC HD and when added together the programme totalled 7.58 million viewers with an audience share of 37 percent.

A full top thirty is not available as figures have not been released for all channels, However we understand Doctor Who finished the week as the 9th most watched programme on British Television.

The final audience for the Sunday repeat of The Pandorica Opens was 0.52 million and the final audience for Saturdays Doctor Who Confidential, including BBC HD, was 0.85 million viewers.

Full ratings for the series so far can be found in Gallifrey Base.

Final ratings data for the BBC One showing of Doctor Who, Episode twelve The Pandorica Opens, has been delayed due to data processing problems at BARB. The final data is now not expected for several days, and will appear on the news page as soon as it is available.

However final data for BBC HD is available and it gives the HD showing of The Pandorica Opens a final rating of 635,000 viewers. This is the highest rating ever achieved by BBC HD.

The 'fast-tracked' Doctor Who continues its excellent ratings in Australia. TV Tonight reports that The Lodger averaged 983,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, again despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. This was 88,000 more viewers than the previous week and the program's best overnight ratings since 1.033 million Australian viewers watched Matt Smith debut in The Eleventh Hour. Yet again it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news and Little Dorrit, being the tenth highest rating program for the day overall. The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated an excellent 664,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

The Appreciation Index figure for Episode Thirteen of Doctor Who, The Big Bang, was 89, the highest score of the series and the highest score on any of the main four channels on Saturday.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. Any score over 85 is considered excellent. Previous series climaxes have all scored high with series 1 and 2 also achieving scores of 89, series 3 scoring 88 and series 4 scoring 91.

The Sunday repeat on BBC Three was watched by 0.68 million viewers with a share of 3.8%. It convincingly won its timeslot amongst the multi-channel stations.

With Sunday's overnight figures now available, Doctor Who is currently 20th for the week. This should rise considerably when the final figure is released next week, with a top ten place achievable.

Doctor Who Confidential recieved an AI of 86.

The final episode in the current series of Doctor Who, The Big Bang, had an audience of 5.1 million viewers, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme had 4.6 million watching on BBC One, with and additional 0.5 million watching on BBC HD. The share of the audience was 31%. Despite the early start, and baking hot weather across the UK, it was the second highest rated programme of the day and the highest rated programme on BBC One, beating Casualty by over a million viewers. The winner of the night was World Cup Live: USA v Ghana on ITV1 which had 5.7 million viewers.

Doctor Who won its time slot, with BBC Two, showing British hope Andy Murray playing at Wimbledon, coming second. In Scotland the Murray match just out-rated Doctor Who for most of the episode. The Big Bang peaked with 5.1 million on BBC One and 0.5 million on BBC HD.

Doctor Who currently stands as the 17th most watched programme of the week. Final figures, released next week, should see the programme in a significantly higher place.

On BBC Three, Doctor Who Confidential had 0.59 million watching, a 3.6% share of the audience