The Ratings Thread

[Si Hunt]

But is it?

Si.

[SiHart]

The now-customary huge timeshift figure gives Amy's Choice a final BARB rating of 7.55million.

Si xx

[Milky Tears]

A huge timeshift still won't be enough to save 'The Hungry Earth' from finishing below 'The Suntan Pit' and ETERNAL DOOOOMEDNESSSESSSESS.* Chinball should be shot, the BBC schedulers should be sacked and Moffeaattt must FRY for destroying everything!

BRING BACK RTD AND THAT GURNER!




* unless it's a new 2m+ record

[Milky Tears]

Figures up from last week's shocker...

1 …. 9.7 * (40.3%) …. Britain's Got Talent (20:00) ITV 1 (9.3 + 0.4 HD)
2 …. 5.8 * (25.5%) …. Eurovision Song Contest 2010 (20:00) BBC One (5.5 + 0.2 HD)
3 …. 5.7 * (27.2%) …. Doctor Who (19:00) BBC One (5.4 + 0.3 HD)
4 …. 4.6 * (22.1%) …. The Whole 19 Yards (19:00) ITV 1 (4.5 + 0.1 HD)
5 …. 4.4 (32.0%) …. BBC News (23:15) BBC One
6 …. 4.2 * (17.9%) …. I Dreamed a Dream - The Susan Boyle Story (21:30) ITV 1 (4.0 + 0.2 HD)
7 …. 4.0 * (22.5%) …. Totally You've Been Framed! (18:00) ITV 1 (3.9 + 0.1 HD)
8 …. 3.4 (16.2%) …. National Lottery Saturday Draws (19:45) BBC One
9 …. 2.6 * (12.3%) …. ITV News & Weather (22:30) ITV 1 (2.5 + 0.1 HD)
10 … 2.5 (14.0%) …. The Weakest Link (18:00) BBC One

but it's a slippery slope.

Lower than usual audience share and what could be Eurovison's smallest UK audience for decades.

The entire BBC is DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!

[Larry]

bad weather and later start time I was expecting to get over the 6m mark but not only did it fail to do that there was also a big fall in the audiance share figure which is a big worry,. I think last nights figures more than anything show that Doctor Who, has lost around a million viewers since Tennent , left. It may be to early to start to worry series 6 has been commisioned but if the show continues to lose viewers I have an uneasy feeling that we might not get a series 7.

[Andrew Curnow]

They are disappointing numbers, but in context - Eurovision is always a big hitter and is only on once a year, so I'm not surprised it got more than Who, but am not worried either. And, rightly or wrongly, Britain's Got Talent always does hugely well in the ratings as well - so we may not be number one, but we're a solid number two (usually).

[SiHart]

From DW Newspage:

Final figures for Episode Eight, The Hungry Earth, published by BARB show the story was watched by 6.49 million viewers.

The figure is an increase of over two million on the initially reported overnights, implying many recorded the programme to watch it later. Although the overnight figure was the lowest reported since the series returned, the final figure beats three David Tennant episodes.

On BBC One the programme got 6.01 million watching where it was the ninth most watched programme for the channel for the week. An additional 0.48 million watched on BBC HD. When added together the programme totalled 6.49 million viewers and was the 19th most watched programme of the week.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

That's something of a relief.

They really need to bring their reporting of ratings into the 21st Century. All this "here are the ratings... PLUS x HD viewers" and then three days later " PLUS people who taped it" is unfair. I'm one of Doctor Who's biggest fans and I usually watch it later and on HD! Why am I included as some kind of 'add on' viewer just because I'm stupid enough to want to watch it on a different channel in higher quality?! It's daft. And in these days of Delay TV, iPlayer and Catchup, watching it after the first transmission time is almost more normal than watching it at the time shown in the Radio Times.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

They really need to bring their reporting of ratings into the 21st Century.

Or Doctor Who fans really need to start getting over their strange obsession with them.

They're not collated for me or you, or any other DW fan. Why is it important to you (or other fans)? You find out the final figure in the end, so why does it matter? Are you afraid that some tabloid are going to 'jump on' a low overnight, and start a cancel this show campaign? I'm genuinely curious.

[Si Hunt]

Yes. I am.

Am I strange not to want that to happen?

Si.

[SiHart]

No, of course you aren't, but there will be more to Doctor Who's cancellation, should it happen than a slight drop in the ratings.

At the moment, the AI figures are very high, the audience share is pretty high and the show is exporting well. I think we're going to be fine.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Equally, I didn't ever say it would be cancelled because the ratings dropped a bit. It was concern, that's all.

I don't get why I'm supposed to not care about ratings when every TV show they cancel is because of poor ratings. Or maybe I'm the only one uncool enough to admit I cheer when they go up and worry when they plummet?

Si. :mobile

[Si Hunt]

I do base what I worry about on a long history of observing the fates of tv programmes that fall from grace. You shouldn't all worry like me because worrying doesn't get you anywhere, but I WAS right when I thought that huge drop wasn't good news. A few more weeks like that and the press would have started speculating. Then, people read it and believe. Then, suddenly, Doctor Who would "not be as popular as it was". And then, when their looking to save money in the wake of Tory cuts, guess what expensive show they can rest for a year? It's not fashionable to forecast doom like that but, hey, I'm not going to pretend Doctor Who is invincible to make you all feel better!

But anyway. The overnights come in and it's all alright after all. And that's my point- what kind of arcane system used to judge the future of TV programmes misses off 2m viewers on the initially published figures? We live in a media, rumour driven world and Doctor Whos success is driven by that same media! These figures are published very quickly and very widely considering they are apparently so unimportant, hey?

Si. :mobile

[Andrew Curnow]

I seem to be making a habit of this (careful!) but I agree with Si - true, the figures aren't produced for fans, but they are surely bound to be of interest. Will one week's drop mean we're for the chop? No. But it is certainly true to say that media interest and the BBC's support can be fickle things - November 1983 it's all high-profile birthday shindigs, and less than 18 months later we're facing the chop; another 18 months and the BBC has somehow managed to convince the audience that their show is not very good, and the figures take a dive from which they never (in the 20th Century) recover!

On a quiet news day, an item about Doctor Who will fill a few column inches, and if all they can find to say is "ooh look, viewing figures are down" then that's how it starts...

I'm a bit of a worrier too!

[Rob McCow]

It's obviously different now to how it was in the 80's. Doctor Who is a huge rolling juggernaut of a franchise, rather than the old forgotten and unloved donkey-drawn cart that it became.

It'll be at least two years before they get rid of it.

[Si Hunt]

True. Two years isn't long though. To put it in perspective, scripts being written now would not get made if it got cancelled in two years. David Tennant's departure was planned in 2006!

It's not that different now to how it was in the '80's - 1983 was a time of toys, postcards, big publicity events (Longleat vs Doctor Who Live?) and Doctor Who constantly in the media. Sounds exactly like today, to be honest!

2010 is our 1983. I just keep my fingers crossed that 2014 doesn't become our 1987.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

It's not that different now to how it was in the '80's - 1983 was a time of toys, postcards, big publicity events

All of which were as a result of the show's producer, JNT working against the BBC! Even then he failed to secure much additional funding for The Five Doctors.

But I don't think it's right to predict that the show is doomed based on the problems of the 80's. The show is bigger than it's ever been! Even during the 20th Anniversary there wasn't as much media interest as there is now. The public perception of the show is as a major event rather than a bit of fun on a Saturday night.

And it isn't cheap any more. It isn't viewed as cheap by the media. Star Wars made Doctor Who in the 80's look bad in a way that, in the 10's, Avatar hasn't.

The other thing is that I think fans want to say 'Oh no we might be in trouble', because they don't want to feel overconfident. It's about associating overconfidence with an impending disaster. It's like saying 'Rome will never fall' or 'England are in with a good chance this year'. Fans feel that they should say negative things to increase the chances of something positive happening. Or rather, that if they say positive things then disaster will surely follow.

If the show starts to fail now, the BBC will try to save it. We'd have at least a year with a new producer, or a new Doctor. And yes, we've been there before but previously it was JNT's efforts that kept the show alive, working against the BBC. But these days, the BBC are behind the show.

[Si Hunt]

All of which were as a result of the show's producer, JNT working against the BBC! Even then he failed to secure much additional funding for The Five Doctors.

Are you sure you arn't confusing the late eighties with the early eighties? My whole point is how quickly things changed. JNT wasn't working "against the BBC" in 1983! Can you provide any evidence for that? And not being able to get lots of extra money from the BBC for the special is hardly evidence, as he was essentially asking them to dig deep to fund an expensive additional show- Doctor Who looks slightly cash-strapped this year, compared with last, the BBC money pot has never been bottomless, and that's no indication of the BBC "fighting against" Doctor Who, either now or then.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

The impression I got was that after the hiatus, JNT wanted to leave but was told that the show would be cancelled if he left. Also that without JNT nothing like Longleat or the merchandising would really have happened. It didn't happen under Hinchcliffe or Williams. OK, so he may not have been fighting against the BBC from day one, but I don't think that the BBC bent over backwards to help him - certainly not in the way they seem to be doing now.

[Logo Polish]

I don't think I would go quite as far a saying it was all down to JNT, as the fan audience and market happened to be undergoing particular development around his time. They'd started holding conventions in the 70s - the first one was in 1977 I believe - and I think Williams and Tom Baker both attended one in America around 1979/80 (didn't they go to one after Shada was cancelled?), and didn't the Blackpool and Longleat exhibitions predate JNT's producership too?

So it was probably as much to do with that side of things becoming quite pronounced from the late 70s/early 80s onwards as anything. I suspect that if JNT had been producer ten years earlier, there would probably wouldn't have been anything like the 1983 Longleat event or the same extent of merchandising that took place during the 80s either. JNT may well have had more of an interest in that side of things, and taken it further than someone else might, but there was an element of being in the right place at the right time too, probably.

[Perry Vale]

I still think viewing figures in Who's modern environment are irrelevant. The time that fans would have reason to worry is when it stops winning it's timeslot.

[SiHart]

Doctor Who got an audience of 5.0 million viewers for episode ten, Vincent and the Doctor, according to unofficial overnight figures.

4.7 million watched on BBC One, where it was the highest rated show of the day. An additional 0.3 million watched on BBC HD, giving a total audience of 5.0 million and a share of 29.4% of the total audience. It was the 2nd highest rated show of the day.

The winner of the day was the final of Britain's Got Talent on ITV1, which had an audience of 12.3 million, becoming the most watched programme of the week.

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

Not a worry about Who, but 4.7 million being the highest figure for a whole day for BBC One is probably a concern for the Corporation isn't it. That's less than watched some episode with Sylvester McCoy!!!

[Larry]

the audience share although 29% was still comfortably ahead of what itv had to offer but when you see that Doctor Who, despitea dissapointiing 5m was still the 2nd most watched programm shows how few people were watvching tv yesterday.the powers that be at both itv and the BBC, are fully aware that tv viewing figures are always effected by hot weather and is one of the reasons that you hardly ever get them premiering any new big dramas during the summer.

[Si Hunt]

Not great. It wasn't that sunny yesterday either. It's a bit of a mystery. Does Joe Public not like anything on offer, except BGT?

Si. :mobile