Based on these final figures, Bells was the top rating drama of the day, the top-rating ABC program of the day and the fourth highest rating program of the day overall (this compares to it being the eighth highest rating program based on its overnight figures of 757,000 viewers). These ratings do not include regional viewers.

Next week's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be Cold War, written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the UK on Saturday at the earlier time of 6:00pm.


This week continues to see the episode between the news and The Voice, with the competition from ITV once again in the form of You've Been Framed. BBC Two offers The Story of Are You Being Served? followed by an episode of the show, whilst Channel 4 has the news followed by Sarah Beeny's Selling Houses. Meanwhile, Channel 5 finishes the film Rocky III and then commences The Magnificent Seven Ride!



Internationally, Cold War will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET on the 13th April, and then on the 14th it can be seen in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. Meanwhile, New Zealand finally gets to see the new series launch with The Bells of Saint John this Thursday on PRIME at 7:30pm.

See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.

Final ratings data for the week ending 31st March 2013 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, gives Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John a final rating of 8.44 million viewers.

The final rating includes all those who record the programme and watch it within a week. It does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 390,000 watched. Nor does it include those watching on iPlayer where over 1 million people have accessed the episode so far.

The rating is the highest the series has received, excluding the Christmas Specials, since the premier of Series Six in April 2011, when The Impossible Astronaut had 8.86 million watching.

Doctor Who was the second highest rated show on BBC One for the week, only being beaten by one episode of EastEnders. It out-rated The Voice by nearly 1 million viewers, even though the two shows were level on overnight estimates. The only show to get a higher rating on ITV was Coronation Street where five episodes scored above Doctor Who. (ITV figures do not include HD viewers).

Full Ratings Data

The Rings of Akhaten had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 84.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

Although the score is slightly lower than recent episodes Doctor Who still scored higher than most of Saturday's output. The highest scoring programmes of the day were Casulty with 87, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway with 88 and Dad's Army with 87.

The Rings of Akhaten has debuted in Australia, averaging 725,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating drama of the day and the tenth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.

The Rings of Akhaten had an overnight audience of 5.5 million viewers, a share of 28.8% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was once more third for the day, although the gap between the series and the programmes at the top of the chart was slightly larger, perhaps reflecting the lighter evenings.

Top of the list was Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway with 7.3 million watching, while The Voice was second with 6.4 million viewers.

Doctor Who once more won the time-slot with You've Been Framed Rides Again! getting 3.4 million watching.

Final ratings will be released next week, which should see Doctor Who substantially increase its rating once those who timeshift the programme are factored in.

Next week's adventure for the Doctor will be The Rings of Akhaten, written by Neil Cross and directed by Farren Blackburn. The episode will broadcast on BBC One at 6:15pm on Saturday.


This weekend's episode is again bookended by the news and The Voice UK; this week ITV is serving up You've been Framed Rides Again!. BBC Two and Channel 5 are showing the films Carry on Again, Doctor and Raid on Rommel respectively, whilst Channel 4 has news followed by Stephen Fry: Best of Gadget Man.




Internationally, The Rings of Akhaten will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and Space respectively at 8:00pm ET on the 6th April, and then on the 7th it can be seen in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.

The Bells of Saint John had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 87.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

Doctor Who scored higher than most of Saturday's output. Other high scoring programmes were Casulty with 87, Richard Briers: A Tribute with 88 and Easter From Kings with 89.

The Bells of Saint John has debuted in Australia, averaging 757,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day and the eighth highest rating programme of the day overall. It was also the fifth highest rating program in the free-to-air 18-49 and 25-54 demographics. These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.

The nominations for the 2013 Hugo Awards have now been announced, with writer Steven Moffat up against himself some three times in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category (in which he lost out last year to fellow writer Neil Gaiman for The Doctor's Wife).

The episodes nominated are Asylum of the Daleks (directed by Nick Hurran), The Angels Take Manhattan (also Nick Hurran), and The Snowmen (Saul Metzstein). The other nominations in the category are Letters of Transit from Fringe, and Blackwater from Game of Thrones.

Doctor Who has won an Award nigh on every year since its return: as well as Gaiman's triumph last year Moffat has won four times previously, for The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances in 2006, The Girl in the Fireplace in 2007, Blink in 2008, and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang in 2011, whilst original showrunner/writer Russell T Davies won in 2010 with fellow writer Phil Ford for The Waters of Mars. 2009 was the odd one out, where Moffat's Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and Davies's Turn Left lost out to Internet musical Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.


Also nominated this year is the book Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who, published by Mad Norwegian Press, which is listed in the Best Related Work category. It'll be up against another Mad Norwegian title, Chick Dig Comics, The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, I Have an Idea for a Book ... The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg, and Writing Excuses Season Seven.


The Hugo awards are given every year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the preceeding year, and is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.

This year's ceremony will take place during LoneStarCon 3 in San Antonio, Texas (29 Aug-2 Sep 2013), with writer Paul Cornell acting as Toastmaster.