My daughter, a big Who fan, is also a fan of boyband One Direction and she tells me that they have announced that 23 November will be known as 1D Day. 1D will be playing live, and streaming their concert and other goodies all day, in a 7 hour day-long event.

Bugger.

I suspect that the audiences won't cross over that much but I bet Moffat and the team are a bit miffed that 1D's Big Day will certainly take a chunk of the available publicity and promotion that day. I wouldn't be surprised if Simon Cowell, a staunch ITV man, has chosen this date deliberately to take some of the gloss of The Day Of The Doctor. Doctor Who's 50th anniversary is a fixed point in time... surely 1D could have chosen any other day?

...edit... just seen Corwin's post saying much the same thing over on the spoilers thread.

One Direction day? Seriously? Oh why can't they just s*d off!

Because One Direction go quite some way towards spoiling reality?

If only Dr Who had some fangirls..

1D aren't sharing the day...

Stealing, usurping, infecting, infesting,smothering,..are all far more suitable words.

It's down right anti-British of them.

It is. A day that should unite all pop culture lovers and these muppets are sowing division.

I think Doctor Who's better off without their audience anyway...

Almost all of One Direction's UK fans are fans of the X-Factor. The only victim here is the X-Factor's ratings, which will take a much larger blow than DW if it comes to a 1D fan mass exodus.

Well that's okay then, They preferred the show under Russell

Quite shocked at how much of a response this is getting from people to be honest.

Yes, November 23rd is a special day for Doctor Who fans. Meanwhile the rest of the world still goes on, and there are other things that will happen that day. That will include ITV trying to find something to put up against the anniversary...if you don't like 1D then fine, you have a wonderful anniversary episode to look forward to that day. The world can't just stop for Doctor Who.

For the record, I hate One Direction.

Of course, some of us could be extracting the Michael.

On here, some... but not all.

Elsewhere... the sense of entitlement is running high in fandom tonight.

It's been suggested before that TXF isn't running 23/11; this is presumably the replacement.

Considering it's also a day off the JFK 50th anniversary I imagine there's a few things being shown about that as well, it'll be interesting.

1 Direction - aren't they a bunch of school kids pretending to be musicians ? Oh they can't be musicians because all they do is prance about and sing (BADLY) to a backing track. Who (no pun) cares what they get up to, I always switch over when they appear on TV.

Wouldn't be surprised at this.

I don't blame ITV for trying to find something ultra popular to run against TDOTD - that's what they do. And of course the world goes on regardless of the Who anniversary. No sense of entitlement at all from me.

It's more that I feel that the press and publicity machine will be split rather more than usual and Who's big celebration may lose out a bit to 1D, who, like them or not, are arguably the biggest pop stars in the world right now. Certainly their rabid fans make the most loopy Doctor Who fans look almost normal!!

And yes, I imagine that there be will a fair amount of programming / press coverage of the JFK assassination too. It'll be a busy weekend.

Who are One Direction? Any good?

I don't imagine Doctor Who would be popular amongst the sort of people who like One Direction. Obviously, there will be some who'll have to chose between watching the Golden Anniversary of a great show and a bunch of people singing songs, but on the whole I don't think Doctor Who will lose many viewers because of a boy band.

What - children!? Big crossover!

The main thing, is that this is an online event. It's not going to take the TV out of commission - the kids can watch their teeny pop bollocks on the laptop while the adults watch Doctor Who. It's still a spiteful bit of cockjousting, though - a very obvious attempt at stealing Doctor Who's thunder, which hasn't done anything to remedy Simon Cowell's slappability.

If I only had two options, watching One Direction or a test card the test card would still win.

Some talent-limited pop boy band for kiddies.


No.

I severely doubt that a live stream would send ratings plunging. Even if ITV aired it directly against DW, DW would still beat it if only because of parents who can't stand the gits.

I didn't fight in two world wars....

No really, I didn't.

And 70 years later we have One Direction...

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

I'm blaming you for this.

Yeah good luck One Direction, we'll see who's still calling it 'One Direction Day' in 50 more years time.