Doctor Who's season opener was the show's worst-rated debut since its return

heisenberg

heisenberg

Earl Grey
Only about 6.4 million Brits watched the first episode of Doctor Who season six, "The Impossible Astronaut," according to overnight ratings, versus 8 million for last year's "The Eleventh Hour." That number will no doubt go up when time-shifted viewers and other factors are included — the final number for "The Eleventh Hour" was 9.6 million. But that probably won't change the fact that "The Impossible Astronaut" had the worst ratings of any Doctor Who season opener since the show returned in 2005.
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http://uk.io9.com/5795537/doctor-whos-season-opener-was-the-shows-worst+rated-debut-since-its-return
 
Joelist

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Really? Quoting the Daily Mail (a scandal rag) to dis on Who's premiere?

BBC One is quite happy with the ratings, they already have said so. The show was in a different timeslot (it used to be on at 7pm now it is on at 6pm, an hour before "prime time") before that gets more viewers and also Britain had great "go outside" weather plus a bank holiday. As a result EVERY show had depressed viewing figures. Meanwhile, BBC America broke its all time viewership record.
 
heisenberg

heisenberg

Earl Grey
Joelist said:
Really? Quoting the Daily Mail (a scandal rag) to dis on Who's premiere?

BBC One is quite happy with the ratings, they already have said so. The show was in a different timeslot (it used to be on at 7pm now it is on at 6pm, an hour before "prime time") before that gets more viewers and also Britain had great "go outside" weather plus a bank holiday. As a result EVERY show had depressed viewing figures. Meanwhile, BBC America broke its all time viewership record.
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Good point!
 
heisenberg

heisenberg

Earl Grey
LOL...

Doctor Who season premiere BBC America's highest rated show ever


If you think you were nervous about Saturday's Doctor Who season-six premiere, just imagine how the creators must have felt. While we were worrying about whether or not it would be any good, they were worrying about whether we'd even turn up for another dose of Matt Smith.
Well, the numbers and the positive critical response show that neither of us had anything to worry about. That is ... in the U.S. The UK reception was a different matter entirely.
According to TV By the Numbers, "The Impossible Astronaut", the first episode of the new season, was BBC America's highest-rated, most-watched telecast ever in the Live + Same Day category, reaching almost 1.3 million viewers, which was up by 71,000 viewers from the network's previous best, which was LAST season's opening episode of Doctor Who.
The news from the other side of the pond wasn't as positive, however. According to the BBC, the first episode in the UK was "watched by an average audience of 6.5 million viewers," which sounds pretty good until you realize that this "was down from the eight million recorded by overnight figures on Matt Smith's show debut in April 2010."
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http://blastr.com/2011/04/doctor-who-season-premier.php
 
YoshiKart64

YoshiKart64

Well Known GateFan
Being on the BBC though the show would really have to bomb for it to get canned. Plus being up in the US is arguably more important as it brings in funding for the show and the BBC.
 
Joelist

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
It's doing fine. The main issue in Britain is the time slot move, which puts it outside of prime time.
 
Joelist

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Overnights were roughly the same as the first episode.

Interesting factoid: The premiere's ratings in England soared from the overnight 6.5 million to 8.86 million in Final Ratings (their version of our Live +7). That is basically the same as other Doctor Who season openers. And in England unlike here time shifted viewers count for renewal purposes (their whole system of ratings is different because of the whole BBC situation). Basically, the shift in time slot is resulting on part of the viewers moving from live to live +7.
 
Tropicana

Tropicana

Council Member
With the numbers it got, DW is not at risk of being cancelled, lol. Cos:

1) The British TV licence payers fund all the programmes on the BBC like me for example.
2) We do not need to have millions in order to qualify for a renewal either.
3) DW much like 'Blue Peter' is a BBC legacy TV show and will never be cancelled.

DW is doing fine, sure it had a lower figure compared to previous DW season openers but still, 6.4 million is an impressive number.
 
Joelist

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Hi Tropicana,

Actually the Final numbers put it ahead of every season opener except Season 1 I think. I was trying to explain it a bit earlier, and your point about the license fee is appreciated, as it is why BBC uses Live +7 for their rating standard (that and the fact that the percentage of TV viewers in England using DVRs is way higher than over here).
 
YoshiKart64

YoshiKart64

Well Known GateFan
Tropicana said:
With the numbers it got, DW is not at risk of being cancelled, lol. Cos:

1) The British TV licence payers fund all the programmes on the BBC like me for example.
2) We do not need to have millions in order to qualify for a renewal either.
3) DW much like 'Blue Peter' is a BBC legacy TV show and will never be cancelled.

DW is doing fine, sure it had a lower figure compared to previous DW season openers but still, 6.4 million is an impressive number.
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Not really true since it actually was cancelled before its revival. But it would have to sink very low to justify getting rid of it. Although as you say it is doing extremely well, nowhere near the point we should actually think about it going off the air. It has the benefit of a built in reboot every time a showrunner ends his story as well so there's no reason it couldn't be on for another 10-15 years.
 
Bluce Ree

Bluce Ree

Tech Admin / Council Member
YoshiKart64 said:
Not really true since it actually was cancelled before its revival. But it would have to sink very low to justify getting rid of it. Although as you say it is doing extremely well, nowhere near the point we should actually think about it going off the air. It has the benefit of a built in reboot every time a showrunner ends his story as well so there's no reason it couldn't be on for another 10-15 years.
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DW was never officially canceled. It was put on an indefinite hiatus but they've always had plans to bring it back. The show continued in book and radio format during the hiatus and there was a movie.

I have to disagree on the reboot aspect. The show wasn't really rebooted. Eccleston's Doctor was the only one a little out of the usual retro-eccentric character we're used to seeing but it all went pretty much right back to the eccentricity we're used to when Tennant took over. Otherwise, the whole Who universe is pretty much where we left it back in '89.
 
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