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.

The National Institute of Dramatic Art (Kensington, New South Wales, Australia) are presenting a number of short courses for children on the production of Doctor Who. Arranged in association with BBC Worldwide, the courses cover a range of activities over the next couple of weeks:


For more information on the courses/booking, visit the NIDA website.

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.

Veteran costume designer Barbara Kidd returns to Doctor Who this year, when she takes over costume design duties on the Christmas Special and the 2011 series.

Barbara Kidd worked on the series at the start of her career, creating costumes as early as the 1973 Jon Pertwee story, Frontier in Space. She was a regular on the series throughout the mid seventies working on The Green Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs and The Monster of Peladon before moving on to a new Doctor in the guise of Tom Baker for The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks and Pyramids of Mars. Her final contribution was for the Peter Davison story Kinda.

Kidd is now one of the most respected costume designers working in British Television. She has won an Emmy for her work on Little Dorrit in 2008 and a BAFTA award for her work on Nicholas Nickleby in 2001. She has recently been working on Wallander.

Doctor Who will also have a new producer from the Christmas episode in the form of Sanne Wohlenberg. Wohlenberg has also recently worked on Wallander and has also produced The Whistleblowers and Murphy's Law.

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 monsters appearing in the forthcoming Doctor Who Live stage show have now been revealed:


This topically football-themed "Monsters First 11" consist of monsters from various recent Doctor Who stories: Judoon, Winders, Clockwork Droids, Silurians, Weeping Angels, Ood, Cybermen, Saturnynes, Daleks, Scarecrows and Smilers.

For more details on the show visit the official Doctor Who Live site, and our previous news report from May.

The final evening of the Glastonbury Music Festival played host to music duo Orbital, and they finished their performance with a rendition of an old favourite, the Doctor Who Theme.

However, a special unexpected guest appeared on stage to introduce the last song of the evening - none other than current Doctor Matt Smith! With a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey arrival Matt roused the crowd and then joined the band for the performance.

Viewers in the UK can watch Matt's appearance and the performance on the BBC iplayer (from 1:50:22) for the next week.

A number of outlets have picked up on the story, including Gigwise, NME, Metro and the BBC.

And this article also mentions that Matt wasn't the only Doctor Who veteran to make a surprise appearance at this year's Glastonbury!