Since the weekend’s overnight TV ratings came out, the knives have been sharpened for previous golden boy of BBC Drama, Doctor Who. As you can see from the graph (which shows overnight ratings in blue, and the official BARB figures, which factor in timeshifted video recordings, in red), the numbers viewing the nation’s favourite Time Lord have dipped in the last couple of weeks, prompting The Guardian’s media blog to speculate that the series may be going off the boil.
(Further coverage in MediaGuardian (registration required) and The Independent (for which you may have to pay in a few days’ time).
Of course, things are rarely that easy. So many factors play into what constitutes a high-rating programme. For example, the huge jump a fortnight ago (which coincides with the return of the Cybermen) benefited from a huge follow-on audience from the FA Cup Final and acres of press coverage, including a rather splendid Radio Times cover. ITV1, which has traditionally played a strong hand on Saturday nights, that week delivered its lowest audience share ever.
Contrast that with this week’s episode. Instead of inheriting a football-loving audience, it competed with one, as Soccer Aid reached its climatic England v the Rest of the World conclusion, and gained a 31% share of the audience as a result — signs, maybe that Simon Shaps’s strategy for the channel may be paying off at last.
So, should the BBC be worried? With two Christmas specials and a full series already commissioned beyond this one, they will naturally want to ensure that they’re getting the return for their investment. And, despite the quite significant downward trend suggested by the figures, there’s no sign that they won’t be. Saturday’s programme still attracted a very healthy 32% share — a figure that may well grow once timeshifted video recordings are counted into BARB’s final figures.
It’s unlikely that Doctor Who will ever again attain the heights of some of last year’s episodes, which secured a phenomenal 45% of the viewing audience — but it’s equally unlikely that it should ever be expected to.
Update: Fan site Outpost Gallifrey analyses the ratings and find they’re improving on last year (Thanks, Rob!)
For those interested in following Doctor Who’s ongoing ratings, the fans at Outpost Gallifrey are compiling more statistics than could possibly be healthy.
What seems to have been forgotten here is that Doctor Who has only lost a half to a full million viewers over the past few weeks, as the summer months begin the ratings of the programme do dwindle slighty. It is rather humourous to suggest that the programme is in trouble when 7-8 milion viewers still tune in every week. The media have bulit this programme up to be the best thing in years, granted in my opinion it is. They are now waiting for the fall, for it to crash and burn. It is extremely popular throughout the country but some stupid people like to put doubt in the minds of the people who enjoy it with talk of falling ratings and cast members leaving. I for one will tune in every week religiously regardless of the football or the weather. Falling ratings, ha! It is not exactly Eldorado.
Doctor Who is consistently the most-watched programme on Saturday nights. What more could possibly be expected of it?
I would like to think that, if the series was placed in the fall/winter period (like long ago), then the ratings for the show would be more pleasing- as the nights would be longer, the weather is not good for the kids to stay out, and everyone is in a nice warm house in front of a nice warm telly watching the Doctor take on the baddies. That having been said, the ratings for the show would have an expectation for it's period of the year in the same manner that it is with this time of year.
Of course, it doesn't hurt to have the BBC put the series around this late so that the first episode of the story with the Satan Pit creature airs around 6/6/06.
Go Doctor Go before Doctor who there was boring reality progs best thing to hit Saturday nights in a long time
The new series is smashing, knocking everything else about the place with gleeful abandon. To suggest that the show is somehow declining because the usual summer downturn in viewership, something virtually every show experiences in every country around this time, is absurd. With the stellar production values, marvelous scripts, and brilliant acting, the new Doctor Who is on a roll. Bank on it.
Christiano Ronaldo showed his cynicism towards the beautiful game with his little wink having provoked Rooney. It was no surprise. His legs give way week in week out as if shot by a machine gunner in the English league. Many, many people now believe Ronaldo is a cheat. Many believe there is no other word for it. That's fair enough, he is welcome to allegedly cheat in his own league, but he sucks cash out of English fans at the same time. It would be great to have fewer cheats in British football. Maximum 2 foreign players per team in the Premiership, as advocated by Sepp Blatter. Cheating should not be acceptable in Britain. If we let it be acceptable, we will raise a generation with different values from our own,
If we take the money out of British football, it will be less attractive to people like Ronaldo.
thanks
www.boycott-football.tk
Dr who or football..like comparing earl grey to ditch water I would have to say..
Lucky to find you, keep on the good workk guys! Best of luck.0