LOL, I believe there's some sort of NHS program that can help with that affliction (it involves drinking your weight in Vodka from what I've heard).

Is it going too far to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Season Fnarg is actually pointing to the way TV will go in the future? Thinking about this for a moment here you have a show that tends to attract a fairly tech-savvy audience who have an incentive to time-shift a show (family commitments, pre-watching to ensure suitability, the urgent need to review any Amy shot for potential up-skirt action... uh, to alert the Daily Mail to the scandal obviously) and a channel in the form of the BBC that have a delivery system pretty much unmatched (regular broadcast, HD broadcast, repeat(s) on live TV, iPlayer via the web, iPlayer via Virgin Media... have I missed anything?). If there was some way to also include Torrent transfers of the episodes to fans abroad I'm pretty sure you could add a million or two more views on to that figure. Wonder if other networks are looking at those final figures compared to the overnights and thinking 'hang on a minute...'.

I think you make a good point here (and your right about the vodka *hic* ). DW is kind of leading the way in terms of how ratings should be collated. I am sure the days of the over night ratings as as viable source of data are in decline as it is, especially in the context of shows with savvy audience like DW's. The future for broadcasting is a "watch what you want when you want" kind of approach (or listen in terms of radio). And BARB are eventually going to need to address that.

Can I have the rest of Season Fnarg now please?

lol, thats not QUITE how it works yet, alas!

Heh, instant cassettes anyone (and if you get that reference... you're just ever so slightly a sci-fi geek).

This number crunching might have mattered several years ago - but the BBC, if it adheres to this nonsense, is the architect of its own destruction!

The BBC invented BBCiPlayer - so you can watch all your favourite shows from other channels live (and that's exactly what you would want to do with "Britain's Got Pop Idol"- if you were as desperate to watch it as ITV's semi-final coverage of "England v Brazil" in World Cup 2010).

So - by having BBCiPlayer, they

Then, you get to watch - no Graham Norton avatars included - a perfect HD version of Doctor Who in your own time.

TV has changed - overnight ratings are now COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO THE BBC.

They were a rough guide to begin with. You would rarely, for instance, see a BBC show be cancelled mid-season for commercial reasons - as is the norm in America.

then isn't it handy we don't do just talk about overnight ratings in this thread but final ratings, i player ratings, AI, total reach and so on as well.

Indeed we have been at great pains to point out that overnight ratings aren't so important these days just a few posts above this one!!!!

As for the BBC being an architect in it's destruction....far from it they are safeguarding their future by ensuring that they are ahead of the game in terms of ways to view TV. ITV is laughable far behind at this stage - their HD is inferior, their version of iplayer is a joke.....

The only threat to the BBC's wellbeing comes on the funding side, which is a subject for a different thread.

And anyway, in relation to DW (which you seem to have forgotten to mention in your post somehow!) the over night ratings remain in line with prior series while we are now seeing time shifts of around the 1.5 million mark!

Might I also suggest (says he taking a BIG step outside of his comfort zone) that the overnights (plus timeshift possibly) are very important to the BBC for determining the core audience of Doctor Who, i.e. those who will schedule both their wedding AND the honeymoon to ensure they're sitting down in front of a TV at 6:25 (or 6:00 or 6:15 or 6:20 or... ).

THAT figure would seem to be crucial in determining the sales prospects of a series overseas and also predicting DVD sales. After all the more money BBC Worldwide can get for a series and/or the more affiliates it can get to contribute to the production cost of the series the more comfortable the BBC is in commissioning the show and giving what is, even after the cuts, going to be a pretty significant pile of money to a sci-fi series that some (very boring) people may claim isn't in the BBC charter.

Doctor Who has always been one of the BBC's biggest money spinners, even when it wasn't being produced. Certainly more so than, say, Eastenders, which also doesn't exactly come under wording of the BBC charter.

Victory of the Daleks has debuted in Australia to excellent ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 915,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, despite stiff competition from the commercial networks including Masterchef Australia and the annual Logie Awards (the major Australian TV awards). The Daleks proved popular, with Doctor Who improving its ratings by 64,000 viewers from the previous week's episode. Again it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news. (By comparison, the final of the mini-series Burn Up only rated 375,000 viewers for the ABC in the following 8.30pm timeslot.) The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a respectable 523,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

To realise how well Dr Who is doing in 2010 you only have to look at how ITV's new series of The Prisoner has fared. Last Saturday it managed to scrape just 1.56m viewers. Disaster.

Yes, i saw that in the ratings thread....it's got quite a good cast too, a couple of big names, and obviously based on a big cult favorite yet it has less viewers than some episodes of Bargin Hunt get of a morning....

Bad times for ITV at the moment.

It's a shocking viewing figure. I bet it cost a fortune too.

The difference is that (I have no idea "why?" but) ITV expected the reimagining of "The Prisoner" to fail hence it's 21:30 slot after BGT and not a prime time slot during the week as it's illustrious ancestor had...I do not understand why ITV have bothered deliberately casting a show into the graveyard before even testing it's mettle - to be honest, I'm thoroughly enjoying "The Prisoner" this time for round for completely different reasons to the original series...ITV are just casting adrift and if SKY haven't swallowed them up within 10 years after the Switch-Over, I will be amazed.

I imagine so, though it was a co-production with a US cable network, iirc.

Also given it's following on from BGT it's amazing it falls so low so quickly! You would think it would at least give it a bit of a boost, but nothing!

I think Lewis did rather well last night though, but I think DW will overtake that on timeshift.

Nothing to do with Doctor Who, I know, but The Prisoner 2009 just isn't very good. I love the original, warts and all, but this new version is nothing like it. It's a complete "re-imagining" and, to be honest, I wasn't even sure what was going on, let alone what it was about. We can moan about Doctor Who but The Prisoner was a real waste of a good concept. I'm not surprised the ratings were poor in the UK - I'm sure, in the US, it debuted to around a million then plummeted.

i am not sure i would describe a slot immediately after the biggest show on tv as a bad slot, and 9.30pm is still very much prime-time, albeit at the weekend.

It's hard to imagine it doing better in a 9pm slot on a weekday, without the benefit of a massive lead in.

Statistically, when was the last time ITV took the Saturday night ratings post Talent/Reality show with an original Drama? It's a completely different audience composition - and ITV were hoping to drag some BGT people in but they are on record as "expecting it to fail to find an audience"

The problem with the Prisoner remake is it's been on the torrent sites since last year and has had 8 months of negative press online (hey go on IMDB and read it's reviews), why ITV didn't broadcast it at the same time as it went out in the USA is a mystery.

Though the real problem with the Prisoner remake is it is bloody awful.

Apologies if this has been answered up-thread: do the viewing figures take into account repeat viewing? If not, are those stats collected?

I'm just curious, 'cos for the first time since nuWho started, I'm watching each ep of DW twice: once live, once on iPlayer - and there must be lots of people doing the same.

repeat views are not counted in the stats, no, although BARB would count it if someone watched the show live one day and then a repeat showing on bbc another day - but that would register as the watching a separate broadcast, not be added in together. The figures for the BBC 3 repeats are listed separately.

the only place they might be is in terms of iplayer views (which do not form part of the BARB data).

Thanks

Final ratings for Ep4 from BARB are 8.13m + 0.46m on HD.

so 8.57 million! Brilliant Ratings inded. Series 5 is more than standing up to previous series

Bloody hell, wasn't the final rating for The Sontaran Strategm around 7 and a bit million? If that's right that's an incredible figure, well it's an incredible figure no matter what but it'd be a very impressive jump.