Now that is pretty darn good. Deserved strong finish for a generally strong debut series for Sir Peter of Capaldi.

Good figure. Also up on Parting of the Ways, The Big Bang & Name of The Doctor.

( what did happen to TBB after the much acclaimed Pandorica Opens cliffhanger? )

I wonder where September's iPlayer figures got to...

So now that the final ratings for Death in Heaven have been announced, I did some calculations to find out how well Series 8 has done compared to previous series.

S1 average: 7.948m

S2 average: 7.715m
S3 average: 7.55m
S4 average: 8.047m

S5 average: 7.729m
S6 average: 7.515m
S7 average: 7.442m

S8 average: 7.263m

So the S8 average is well under Matt's, David's and Chris' first series. With the first series for every new Doctor usually being the best ratings wise (except for David with Series 4), I hope the Series 9 average doesn't fall below 7m.

It wouldn't be much of a shock. Series 9 is Year 10

That fact is largely ignored in ratings discussions "because it's Doctor Who." It will take one hell of shakeup (more than RTD -> Moffat) to turn back the tide.

But of course, we're performing "exceptionally well"

Try looking behind the Sofa.


Chris only had one series so can't be used in this comparison, David like you said had a later series do better than his first so it's only Matt who has done multiple series' and had his first series perform the best.

Not sure you can claim that as what usually happens

Doctor Who gets a mention by the Beeb in the latest calls for the license fee to be abolished: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...oVMXAraYIZMFRX

I see Digital Spy has some fairly clued-up readers.

That's a PR own goal, citing a depressing, badly acted soap and a children's fantasy show that has nose dived in the ratings and gets beaten by repeats of the god-awful "You've been Framed" on ITV. I know the fanboys will be out in force claiming Dr. Who gets 74342 million viewers on Iplayer.....give it a rest.

Mumbling Chris!!

Well, you know. Maybe we're just fanboys, but obviously considering how much the BBC push iplayer they are going to factor in how well Who does on there. Nose dived is a bit of an exaggeration, innit. Obviously would like to the show getting higher ratings, but still think it's commendable 9 years in how well it's holding up in the UK. YOY other programmes have dropped a lot more...take New Tricks for example, which used to outperform Who most of the time. (Heard that programme's action figures aren't selling too well any more either.)

Mumbles as i call him!

Anyway, another series averaging over 7m after 9 years..... On to series 9!

X Factor has lost over 4 million in the time Doctor Who has lost 400k It will be the same storm-in-a-teacup next year, I look forward to it.

DW is "a hit" with 5m and "exceptional" with 7m

Here's a cool graph I thought you might be interested in. Not TV ratings, but ratings nonetheless.

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0436992

I like graphs.

This may be the best one yet at charting DW's performance.

( thanks Jonz )

To be fair that isn't actually dissimilar to what the graph for ratings would be... Now I wanna plot it... And I hate stats but I love graphs...

Well if you use L+7 for the 1st 4 episodes, the series average is 7.6225m

But it's not an accurate comparison to all the other series' as we don't have L+7 ratings for Series 1-7

I think you'll find that Live+7 is much too old school and following the ways and means of Director of BBC Television, Danny Cohen, the 28-day consolidation is the way forward

Which, so far, brings us to 7.7m

It's not our fault those other series were late to the party!

The ratings are strong with only a small drop over 9 years (nine years where did the time go) which is pretty impressive, not many shows could claim the same. Hopefully ratings can stay steady(ish) for another 9 years

The BBC getting this out very quickly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/lat...r-who-triumphs

Except that now we have the official figures, we see it's not well under Matt's first season but is actually higher. Ah well, doubtless the naysayers will find something else to complain about.

Well if it isn't clear by now what the BBC's position on DW's ratings is.....

....ban me now


Phwoar.

#easilypleasedconsistencysheepie

Of all of the Moffat hating naysayers, the 'ratings are plummeting' mob are undoubtedly the most stupid....as proved again by the latest 'The Mary Sue' article on the subject . I mean, good or bad, like or hate is all about subjective opinion, but when straightforward facts fail to penetrate their brains, you know your not dealing with the intelligentsia!

I don't know where they got 7.4m from.

Not sure it is higher as the series 8 average is 7.26m. Series 5 was higher.

Me too The average for S8 (which I got from the OFFICIAL ratings on Barb) was 7.263m, which is around 450k lower than S5. If you don't believe me, do the calculations yourself. I didn't make the numbers up.

I'm still getting a "Doctor Who is failing" vibe from several people on here - it's like these people are wanting the show to fail.

It's not failing: it still has a large core audience, it has an extremely high timeshift, and is successful in the other countries it is shown.

Some people on here exude so much negativity - I bet you're a joy to be around.