Thats why the AI may be revealing. Obviously the episode was a hit with the fanbase, but until we see the AI it's hard to know for sure how much the wider audience have taken to Matt and Karen. I'd anticipate a strong AI regardless, after all it a popular show, but if we see a downward shift to what we would normal expect (over 85) that might be a small cause for alarm. I'm optimistic it will be high though.

Doctor Who had well over two million more viewers than any other show on last night and again they are comparable with other series openers. Those figures are very good. I expected 8 - 8.5 million, and think anyone expecting more was being unrealistic tbh.

I still think it would have done better in a later slot. A lot of potential viewers either work or go out on Saturday afternoons. The time slot has sabotaged it slightly. But, hey, another crap talent show is obviously more important...

Just look how many didnt stick around for Over the bloody rainbow..that dropped to 5.9million..ITV got owned by BBC last night.

DW is the Stand out figure of the evening.

Sorry but again there is no proof of this and your view is simply not backed up by past data around start time. I think to coin your favorite term, it's "lazy writing" to try and link viewing figures with the time slot given that series 4 achieved strong viewing figures in the same slot we have here. And looking at series 2 through to 5, we can see that a fairly similar number of viewers have tuned in for each opening episode regardless of the time slot.

It was 7.7m for standard TV viewers and 0.3m for HD.

yes, but those should be added together really, to make 8 million, because that was the total number of people that watched the show last night. It's only in the formal ratings that they wouldn't be combined (choice of the BBC), even BARB now report them together.

It does seem there was a small error in the initial reporting of the figure though.

Comparisons with earlier series hardly matter - the fact is that 8million+ on a sunny holiday weekend is a fantastic figure for any programme, particularly one which has just overhauled its entire cast and production team.

I agree that the AI is the important thing at this point. And next week's figures will be telling as well though. I just don't think that 100k or so is any cause for alarm at all, and some people need to calm down and not panic - in the words of Eleven, everything's going to be fine

Have some compassion, Muttley. He has to do this. Otherwise he's stuck admitting that RTD wasn't keeping the show down in the least.

Have to agree - the ratings are up there with Corrie and Eastenders if you take the last week (when they also have had a notable decline due to the lighter evenings presumably) and well up on most current stand alone dramas on either channel - add the fact it was the most watched programme of the day and I don't really see any cause for concern or complaint.

Next week will probably dip as the weather improves and the "event" factor means people will record/watch the BBC3 repeat/catch-up episode now that they know the series is back on cracking form.

I think also the football is a factor, even if the ITV FA cup hasn't been a great draw this year it is still semi finals. That said, the time shift will likely make up for any dip there.

I suppose I should have said in my introduction to the ratings for this series I am expecting the average to be down a little on series 4, because the second half especially had some pretty remarkable figures (JE has the most impressive figures of any episode since the reboot for me - over 10 million in the summer time is out of this world!), but I think my expectation is it will perhaps compare well with series 3.

Next week I think we will see about 7- 7.5 million all in on overnights.

I think the Dalek/Churchill episode might see bigger ratings than this week though.

Decent figure and the more likely of yesterdays predictions going by previous years, the average casual viewer won't know or care about the change in showrunners and so although hoped for, dramatically higher figures were always unlikely.

Doctor Who finishes in 8th place for the week in the TV ratings on overnights, the only non-soap to make it in to the top 10:

1. Coronation Street (19:30) ITV 1 - MON - 9.5 (40.7%)
2. EastEnders (20:00) BBC One - MON - 9.4 (36.6%)
3. Coronation Street (20:30) ITV 1 - MON - 9.1 (36%)
4. EastEnders (19:30) BBC One - MON - 8.5 (36.3%)
5. EastEnders (20:00) BBC One - FRI - 8.4 (35%)
6. Coronation Street (19:30) ITV 1 - FRI - 8.3 (36.0%)
7. Coronation Street (20:30) ITV 1 - FRI - 8.0 (31.8%)
8. Doctor Who (18:20) BBC One (7.7 + 0.3 HD) - SAT - 8.0 (38.4%)
9. EastEnders (19:30) BBC One - THU - 7.9 (34.7%)
10. Coronation Street (20:30) ITV 1 - THU - 7.6 (30.6%)

I think with final ratings it may finish as high as 4th for the week, but should at least move up to 6th at least.

I think that puts in context what a good result it was for DW tbh.

Also, the AI for this episode was 86, which is a very good result for the openeing episode of an era, if slightly down on the AI's the show has enjoyed in recent times.

Considering the new timeslot (which I think we can all agree is a mistake and is going to hurt the show as the evenings get warmer in May and June), I think the figures are very impressive.

I expected more then eight million to be honest considering it's a new doctor and a new companion

Oh well.

I agree. And yes, it is very definitely a stupid move to put it on that early in the summer. I can't understand why they've done this at all.

I expected around that figure due to past ratings for series openers. Your expectations were perhaps unrealistic? People saw the new doctor in TEOTP2, so it was unlikely to draw more viewers than an average series opener. Possible had we not seen MS in TEOTP2 you might have been right to expect more.

Furthermore, these are only overnights. We could be looking at as much as 9 million as a final figure.

For the 100th time the show is not in a new time slot. It is in exactly the same bloody time slot that series 4 started in! And it got very similar figures to that episode.

I'm glad you came in here Muttley as I was just scratching my head!! I was wondering what people were going on about here!

The thing that gets me is that people seem to be deliberately ignoring the truth on that issue. It's bizarre!!!!

Very bizarre.

Furthermore, DW hasn't had a fixed 7pm start time since series 1: half the episodes in series 2 didn't even start at 7pm.

Plus, in terms of ratings averages, some over on GB worked out that excluding specials there is no difference whatsoever in the ratings the show gets pre and post 7pm. Not one single percentage point!

I can't imagine why it would!!!

I'd guess that some people who are not Who fans would have tuned in just because of the hype about the new Doctor, and that would explain the slightly lower AI - I mean it's not much different, is it? I'd guess that we'd get a drop in ratings next week as well, just because of the people who only watched out of curiosity, I think that always happens, but going on the massively positive reaction to the first ep, I'd hope it would keep most of the 8 million.

I think that series openers do tend to get a bit lower AI's. Also, there will be some people that take a bit of time to get used to the new guy/gal in the show.

Normally the show does lose viewers between episodes 1 and 2, I think this time around there is a bit of competition from the fa cup semi finals on ITV. I think far to say the overnights will be around 7 - 7.5 million at best, but thats to be expected really.