Hassaan13, do you have manners? You ask people a lot of things in this thread but never with a 'please' or 'thanks'.

As for Doctor Who, I would have liked it a bit higher, if I'm to be totally honest. The share looks a bit low as well for a launch episode.

Not been tweeted by the ITV goons yet. Perhaps they're bad?

Who peaked at 6.9m.

Agreed. As others have said it will time shift well, but there can be no doubting many expected higher ratings. There was talk of it beating X Factor in the overnights which now seems all but impossible.

The last two series have seen an average timeshift of 1.76m which, if the trend continues, should mean last night's is close to 8.0m in the officials.

I agree though, a higher overnight is deserved. It's always the way with Who.

Dr Who is doing amazingly well for a 7yr old show (in all the important rating ways it's 7yrs old)

Coupled with the crashing of ratings in general, it's a major success story in TV land. One of the few.


If the ratings instead were around the 4.5m mark (with .5m timeshift) then it would be on the way out no doubt.

Doctor Who has also always maintained a very stable official average over 7 years despite overnights falling, showing it has a VERY loyal and stable audience - it's just that some of that audience no longer watches it live.

Most of the posters in this thread must work for either ITV or BBC. The bias is so transparent.

https://twitter.com/leethommo/status/242180569566433280

leethommo
Sat TV overnights: X Fact 8.57m average, Paralympics 2.56, Celeb BB 1.40, Dr Who 6.38m. Red Or Black still dead on its arse with 3.36 ave.
9:42 AM - 2 Sep 12

No idea if ITV's numbers include +1, but even if they don't, that's only a 170k jump on last week for X Factor.

Sorry - that's pretty poor really for DW's return on an autumn night, unless Red and Black somehow dented it. They might as well have aired it at 6pm and got the same.

But of course, it will shift to 8m still putting it in the big league of telly shows.

Think the Doctor shouldve rated better. It was shown at a great time compared to usual, first Autumn series debut in over 2 decades, lots of hype and publicity over the Olympics, Daleks in the first episode and it still got a smaller rating than last years first episdoe which was shown in Spring at 18:00?

That explains the lack of ITV tweets this morning then! Disaster for TXF, that's up only about 200k on the week isn't it?

Although the Games aren't rating brilliantly, they are clearly shaving a bit off BBC and ITV shows.

Good for the Beeb that SCD is unaffected by this - but they must be looking at the TXF ratings slump and thinking "will we suffer the same?". Alternatively, this might be the Beeb's chance to put Cowell to the sword and vanquish him for good.

Yeah. Channel 4 and Channel 5 barely get a look in!

I think 6.4m is decent, but this is the second year in a row when the myth that DW's ratings would be higher on Autumn nights is disproved.

I still think they start 'Autumn' too early. There are so many people away at the moment that it must dent figures along with the fact it was a decent weather weekend etc.

Doctor Who rates better on Autumnal nights and a later timeslot. That theory has been put to bed now.

I hoped it'd be higher than 6m but expected around 6m. to be honest.


Hold on Robbie. We don't know what TXF got with +1 yet.

I am disappointed. It should of rated higher. Much closer to the rubbish that is X Factor. Hope it jumps by 1.5M when time shift is added.

It really seems that not much can be done to alter the balance of live viewer versus time shifters with Doctor Who. I remember Moffat saying he wanted DW in Autumn/winter not in summer when people had to put down their barbeque fork to watch it. Well not many could have been barbecuing yesterday!

Can't believe X Factor got even that. Just why, anymore? Last night was the worst episode I've ever seen of it. More clear than ever it is top to bottom script. The TOWIE set up scenes, the judges asking just the right questions in relation to the acts backgrounds, the judges being all "ooh er we really need to find some talent today" Pre Syco mania, this kind of shambles would have dwindled within weeks. Now though, it seems these shows are as embedded a habit as the soaps and it's going to take a long time to get rid of them.

My favourite parts of X Factor: The stylish editing, and Peter Dickson. Nope, nothing else I can think of.

I'd go as far as to say I 'enjoyed' Red & Black more than X Factor last night. Sure it's absolute crap, but it all pretty much plays out as you see it. XF is pathetic and now unwatchable for me.

Yes, I'm the BBCs biggest fan

ITV1, incredibly well-run by all.

CH4, not trash central for blood-sucking parasites. oh no.

CH5, mixed nuts

X Factor comfortably seeing off the competition, but the dip in ratings is concerning. It doesn't have the same magic it used to and that is in no small part related to an uninteresting judging panel- I fear ratings will at best plateau and at worst will dip further for boot camp/ judges houses. The lives are still an unknown quantity depending on who actually qualifies for them.

If I was Mr Cowell I would clear out Gary Barlow, Tulisa and Nicole next year. Kelly Rowland last year was the only one who added a vibrancy to the panel and while I don't necessarily want her to come back the series is going to badly miss a character like her. Next year I would keep Louis for consistency, bring in Mel B in a head judge role and then bring in 2 brand new judges. That may at least generate some excitement for the 2013 launch and the show will have to be on top of its game to maintain that level of interest.

We can only hope that this year's show doesn't do too much irreparable damage...

It would not of made much difference i imagine, but i think they should of started Doctor Who at the back end of September.

Disappointing start for Doctor Who. We all know that timeshift is where the real story lies, but even so based on that overnight it seems likely to end up with 8.0-8.5m in the officials, which will most likely be it's lowest series opener ever (since the revival anyway). Considering how much more it had in its favour last night compared with last year especially it's an underwhelming start.

The X Factor was in line with my prediction from last night. It's certainly an underwhelming rating but based on the first two shows and the Paralympics denting everything a bit it isn't a surprising rating. I assume it got about 9m with +1, so a similar year-on-year decline to the first two shows. I can't see that changing much for the rest of the auditions, but they should be looking to reduce the declines in the later stages of the series. Red or Black meanwhile looks dead as a dodo (I even wonder if XF would be 0.5m or so higher with a better lead-in). Paralympics doing really well for C4 - presumably it peaked comfortably above 3m. Great stuff for them.

XF, again not doing as well as expected.

Peak could be higher than last weeks, we never know. I think it'll pick up once we reach bootcamp. At this rate, I predict the final won't rate any higher than this years BGT final (which peaked at 13.78m without +1, and 14.49m with +1)

It'd be interesting to see the share aswell. So we've had this:

Auditions 1 - lowest launch since 2006
Auditions 2 - lowest second auditions episode since 2007
Auditions 3 - ?

Comparing the premiere numbers with the last series:

Sat 23 April 2011 (Holy Saturday)
18:00 - Doctor Who: 6.5m (36.7%)
* peak: 6.98m (37.4%) at 18:35

Sat 1 September 2012
19.20 - Doctor Who: 6.38m (29.3%)
* peak: 6.9m

The Paralympics' 2.56m is presumably an average for the 19:00 to 22:30 slot? That would compare with a ~1m average for C4 around the time of the 2011 Who premiere, so I'm sure the Games dented Who (along with TXF).

Fewer and fewer people are watching "channels" any more.


TV executives have been so inept with scheduling that it's all but impossible to sit down to watch a nice range of programmes one after the other of a sat/sun

So there is little carry-through from one programme to the next. TV programmes become appointments-to-view (rare) or are just another PVR selection.


For a show like Dr Who to get people stopping doing what they are doing to watch it as broadcast is quite a feat. Few other drama programmes are achieving it.