There is a lot of nonsense talked about ratings figures on here, so it's important to keep a sense of proportion. The overnights are increasingly less important to broadcasters - even the commercial channels - because of the different ways people are now consuming television shows. 3 million viewers back in the late 80s was poor; 5 million now, with the potential to add 2 million more - is still very healthy. Audience share is of much more interest to programme makers than blunt overnight figures.

Clearly the overnights for Hide were down. But on the first lovely, warm weekend after such a ghastly winter, I'm surprised they weren't down more. In fact, I would submit they suggest the audience for Who is pretty robust, despite the show being moved around the schedules. And, yes, Who was used to protect The Voice this weekend. To understand why, you have to appreciate the politics at the BBC. The BBC - a publicly-funded broadcaster - spent an awful lot of money on securing the rights to The Voice and reputations are riding on its success or failure.

Although ratings for The Voice are okay, it isn't the mega-success the BBC had hoped. Certainly, it isn't something "everybody is talking about". Like them or loathe them, The X Factor and BGT still generate headlines; The Voice hardly at all. The BBC are terrified of being accused of spending a vast sum on something that is delivering only mediocre results, so they need to concentrate on covering its back as much as possible.

Who is fine. There's no need to panic. Obviously, if the show started to haemorrhage viewers, particularly in the run-up to the 50th, questions might be asked why. But there's no evidence of that at all. Not even in the overnights. As for the so-called "krap" (sic) scripts... personally, I've found the last two eps to be better than practically anything we've seen in the Matt Smith era. I can't recall a standout episode from S6, the poorest season since the show returned in my view. But S7 is shaping up to be a real hoot.

No longer tied for second place Still fantastic looking, especially with yesterday's fun fact.

I hope 'Hide' can catch up. It would be a shame to break the 7m chain now.

Consecutive ratings over 7 million for the first time since the Peter Davison era. Third highest rated series since 2005. Record breaking on-demand figures. Highest recorded viewing figures of all time in the US.

It was more likely to be in trouble after series 3. But do go on, everyone. Blame Moffat. Blame Smith. Blame Coleman. Blame the writers.

Blame them all for producing a popular and highly successful science fiction show on BBC One in 2013.

Facts before fiction This ratings scare was created by the likes of The Sun, The Daily Mail and Anti-Whovians as a means to create superb headlines and find imaginary faults in the show.

There is nothing wrong with the ratings. There has never been anything wrong with the ratings since 'Rose.' If you don't like the show now, if you find the scripts rubbish, if you don't like the lead actors, well that's a personal view. But I won't tell you to stop watching if you don't like it. I would say please, carry on so we keep getting viewing figures like these.

Yes, it's getting tedious seeing these remarks.

Can I just point out to those people annoyed and aggravated by the OP's post, that they have 8 posts to their name and a join date of April 2013 so unlike many of the respondents to this thread they have not spent the last few years debating the same ratings issues round and round and round, they might actually be a genuine fan genuinely concerned about the ratings and genuinely not aware of the mitigating factors.....

The bbc dont care where Doctor Who is in the schedule now. Its used a weapon in the BGT battle. But I agree that this hardly matters when the timeshift is so high and the I player figures are bigger than ever. Doctor Who live enonormous figures can only really work on a different time of year and different day. The programme is now almost doubling its live viewers later on.

Perhaps as Hide was upgainst BGT for 30 mins, the Time Shift will be increased and possibly hit 7m with more people recording to watch later...weve had a timeshift of over 2m before so its not impossible to think this could happen again

According to the Radio Times, the transmission time for al least the next two weeks is 6.30-7.15pm so only a 15 minute overlap with BGT.

Hide Update: 5.858m

It's the FA Cup Final instead next week...

Yes, totally agree. I guess my only concern is whether shows like Who (where viewers are increasingly moving to on-demand) might end up being the victims of shoddy scheduling. For instance, I love that Doctor Who is now a Christmas Day fixture. But who's to say the stupid BBC schedulers (and they are really stupid, don't forget) might shift it from Christmas Day to something stupid like 11am Boxing Day.

How does Doctor Who's first day timeshift compare to BGT and The Voice Yog?

..and yet they manage to put the poor ratings (that don't exist) down to crap scripts (twice) and a childish Doctor. That's what has annoyed me, not the fact they got some ratings wrong. They clearly think Doctor Who is crap at the moment, an opinion that facts are not going to change!

BGT: 10.046m (10.711 with +1)
The Voice: 9.110m

The FA Cup is Sat 11th May

WITH THE GAIBERMEN?!

A good indication of how much I care about football

That seems good to me. Are we still on course for a 7m rating

Leaving aside everything else, they'd only do that if they thought they had something better to replace it with. What on earth are they going to come up with to fill a 45 minute hole right around tea time on Christmas day that'll a) produce better ratings and b) not cost them additional money to make?

I'm also not convinced about this whole 'stupid schedulers' argument when it comes to Who (sorry, not picking on you Mulett but I've seen this one around a lot of places). Would the show do better in a fixed slot? Yes, probably. Do the BBC *need* it to do better in a fixed slot? Hmm, not so sure. Who is strong enough to stand on its own pretty much anywhere in the Schedule and has a dedicated audience that follows it. Those that don't, well, they watch on timeshift which with modern PVR boxes that follow the show rather than a timeslot means it can move to help out the rest of the schedule.

Watching BBC One last night though showed exactly what the BBC think of Who. Thirty second (or longer, wasn't timing) promotion spot for iPlayer right before MoTD (I think, could have been the news). The ONLY program shown? Doctor Who, specifically a 'catch up on every episode' spot. THAT'S what Who is to the BBC, a ratings success that's also leading the way on timeshift and on-demand viewing. They know full well the show is incredibly strong (despite what some would have you believe) and that it's a central part of their original programming.

OK, I guess there were two strands to the original post and I was responding to the 'oh here we go again" reaction posts about the OP's analysis of the statistics, not the OP's analysis as to why they thought they were poor....just suggesting that maybe a bit of allowance for new posters would be a good thing, this isn't a private members club.

BLIMEY! That's one of The Voice's biggest one day timeshifts for this series. Pity Who was the sacrificial lamb for BGT but it helped The Voice.

is that Voice correct, seems like a very big timeshift for first day

Yep it's correct. 1.187m were added through Sunday's data.

cool, there were a queries on Ratings Thread (just though I'd double check)

as for Hide, I missed the beginning but it looked an interesting episode. It should consolidate around 7m I reckon

I don't think it will. 6.8m is my prediction.

I agree entirely, there's a rather disturbing pattern emerging on this forum of posters being attacked and ridiculed by a certain element of long time or regular posters.

There's nothing wrong with providing a reasoned and polite counter arguement, but unfortunately many on this forum would rather take the p**s out of the OP, make sarcastic heavy posts with plenty of these smilies in them , and then run off to the "my opinion" thread to make 'hilarious' posts mocking other forum members.

No offence taken!

My issue with the schedulers is simply around how they prioritise shows which I consider to be cheap, formulaic 'talent' shows above one of the BBC's most successful and broadly appealing family dramas.

You're probably right - Who gets its viewers pretty much regardless of where it sits on the Saturday night schedule. I guess for me, in a way, its not even about viewing figures as much as respect - and not prioritising shows which appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Obviously this is a personal view, but it used to infuriate me when Doctor Who slipped earlier and earlier in the Saturday schedule (away from the prime 7pm slot) to make way for the likes of those dreadful Andrew Lloyd Webber talent scout shows (Dorothy, Joesph, Nancy etc).

And now its being put up against BGT to save The Voice from going head-to-head. I suppose I just feel the show's becoming schedule filler rather than being placed in a slot that respects/reflects its own unique quality and popularity.

Its Cagney and Lacey all over again (you'll need to be at least 40 to get that reference).

The majority of the time Nige, they AREN'T reasoned counter arguments, usually it's a case of "The new episodes are rubbish the show should be cancelled or maybe replace Moffat and Smith" with the tone of "I thought my opinion was so important it deserved its own thread apart from the many many threads where this could have been posted as a contribution to an ongoing discussion, which it really should have been given that I have just posted an opinion piece with no content that could spark a reasoned discussion or debate on the overall state of the show."

Graham's post was perfectly fine though, and as previous posters have said, judging by the fact he reasoned and backed up his POV coupled with his join date etc he doesn't come across that way and most likely just wanted some clarification. I think a little discretion is needed by some of the posters who rebuffed him