Series 2 - New Earth 8.6 million . Doomsday 8 million


Series 3 - Smith and Jones 8.7 million . Last Of The Timelords 8.6


Series 4 - Partners in Crime 9.1 million . Journeys End 10.57 million


These first and final episodes of the respective series all seem just as big a pull to me. Am I wrong in coming to that conclusion?

Well you have omitted series 1, when it wasn't the case, so that seems a bit unfair.

Plus we don't have the final data for the finale this year yet, so I think we need to wait.

No. I'm just saying that new Doctor's first episode is an "event" more likely to make people tune in live in a way that finale isn't. it's a factor. I think we need to wait for the final figures.

Probably lots of stuff in this thread already about timeshifting and its changing impact in the last five years.

But wait for the final figures, I think. Then have a good old chinwag about whether viewers drifted away from Who as a result of not liking this series as it progressed. (or whatever theory.)

There was undoubtedly a curiosity factor that made The Eleventh Hour the most watched series opener since Rose.

Yes Muttley, as I said before the show wasn't established to a new audience in series 1, the finale had not become the big thing it became. SO it inst unfair, I'm not playing selective games it isn't my style, I didn't use series one because frankly it is irrelevant to how A Doctor Who finale is perceived now to then.

I agree, all the data inst in, we will have to wait and hopefully, fingers crossed it comes out with a stonking record breaking figure, it STILL does not hide the fact that 5.odd million for the live broadcast for a Doctor Who finale is not good at all. That is all I am saying.

Possibly, possibly not...

Fans of 'Doctor Who' and the BBC don't always come to the same conclusions, even when looking at the same set of data.

Fans might say 'well, the world cup was on - what do you expect?'; the BBC might say to the production team 'you knew the World Cup was on - why didn't you make an extra effort to draw the viewers in?'.

That might seem unreasonable to us, but these 'no excuses' bosses are out there. I've seen sales managers walk into a review meeting having missed their annual target (but armed with some perfectly understandable reasons why) and they've *still* been shot down in flames and left with a pink slip.


I hope you're right.

Regards,

Cypher

I still don't think it is fair, your discounting them purely on your opinion, and as I said my opinion is that there are many elements the same this series. Of course not to the same degree, but I think this series can more fairly be compared to series 1 than any other series to be honest. It cannot be denied that David was so established in the role for some people that some tuned out this year, probably after watching the first episode or 2 out of curiosity.

The show needs to build on the generally solid foundations from this year, maybe to learn from a mistake or two that was made along the way, and now move on to build on it.

It's a real shame the finals for TPO were delayed, because it would probably have given us a reasonable basis for comparison as to what kind of time shift we might get for TBB. It seems that we may not get the final ratings for TPO till after the TBB now, amazingly enough!

Sorry guys but i'm not entirely sure how a black box on a few thousand TVs can be generalised to the entire British population?
I don't really worry about this thing myself,ratings could be 10 million for all we know. It's just something i don't understand.

I'm putting this here as there's nowhere else and i don't want to start a new thread. Someone high up at the BBC doesn't seem to care very much about drama. The last two episodes of Waterloo Road have yet to go out. The show website gives no indication when. Anyone who doesn't know there are 18 episodes will think the series has ended. Drama, as weve seen with the time slot for DW has become low priority.

The problem with Waterloo Road is the scheduling difficulties due to the World Cup I think. Someone said upthread about lack of planning this year, and I think this might be another case. I don't think it's they don't care about drama, especially in comparison to ITV. Jay Hunt has come in for a bit of stick in her job as controller over scheduling issues, some fair, some unfair in my view.

The maths is pretty well understood and polling techniques are quite sophisticated nowadays. The accuracy is stated as being +-1.4% (with a 95% confidence level). What that means is that there's a 1:20 chance of the "true" ratings being outside the quoted accuracy range so, yes, it's entirely possible that about 10m could have been watching. It's equally likely that only about 1m were watching. However, both of those extremes are, statistically, very unlikely!

There are some potential anomalies, though, especially for low-rated shows and channels. But for anything with ratings in the "DW" range, they're pretty solid.

K

I did read some time ago that there were going to be cutbacks in drama on BBC which has previously has been a world leader for costume dramas. You're probably right that it's partly a planning issue but just to compare the BBC with ITV isn't enough. ITV's output is abysmal.

It's actually 18/20 programmes of Waterloo Road that have been shown and the website says "Sorry, no programmes coming up" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1p7
I would have thought they could have fittd it in somewhere on another night. BBC drama definitely seems to be on the decline from where I'm sitting...and it did start when Jay Hunt took over.

But.... 1, 2, 3 , 4 increasing year on year, but 5 falling back.

The Stephen Fry article that upset so many people here had some decent points to make about drama output.

The BBC have been forced to make cutbacks for budgetary reasons, but i think they have been reasonably prudent in their approach...I mean "Last of the summer wine" for example had more than run it's course, and seeking out alternate funding avenues for Torchwood, while frustrating for fans (in terms of the long delay in confirming series 4) is really the sort of creativity the BBC are going to need to show in forthcoming years.

But yeah, the ITV output is pretty awful, one or two gems aside. Even their adaptations of Poirot aren't what they used to be.

The good (better) weather this year will have more of an impact than anything else.

there has been good weather other years, it's more a combination of that and people having more ways to catch up with the show that have lead to the increased time shift.

Yup. Doesn't surprise me though.

I agree that Stephen Fry did make some good points (rather than criticising DW as per the headlines). As I understood, he was also calling for producers to take risks and imo that's just what the producers of DW did in putting two unknown actors in the lead roles. They've also slightly rejigged the format which isn't going down too well with some of the fans on here.They've done very well with overcoming the budget cuts whilst making the show far more cinematic and in the case of VAD, visually stunning. I've looked at some of series 1-4 and there's a big improvement.

All power also to RTD or whoever was responsible for obtaining the funding for Torchwood from America. I would be sad though if DW was forced to lose its quintessentially Britishness.

DW is the BBC's flagship drama and I do think it's a great pity that they haven't valued it more highly in this hot summer of sport. Looking at other dramas like WR does show a lack of foresight and planning. There have been complaints on here that DW is no longer event TV. Whilst acknowledging that viewing habits are changing, I do think the BBC should be doing everything it can to maximise its core family audience. It's no good crying budget cuts on the one hand and not giving DW a prime viewing spot on the other.

Bit of a disaster that the audience thought it was excellent. The prod team will be wondering where they went so wrong.

I'm optimistic about the public taking the current lot to their hearts. I'm going to guess that you're not. (let's check back in 2012) This one figure doesn't really help us predict anything. It does indicate the audience thought it was excellent (but perhaps not as pant wettingly wonderful as they thought S4 was.) If this style of Who (which I like on the whole) turns out not what the public wants, so be it. But I wouldn't get your hopes up that that figure alone is going to prompt inquiries.

I'm quite looking forward to the ratings figures and that discussion. Hopefully an insider will leak a clue as to where BBC mgmt/prod team though it all went so horribly wrong* / (pleasingly right*) *delete as applicable.

Its a bit unfair to compare the ratings of TBBang to JE, DT had more time to build up a fan base than MS. How many viewers arn't watching because DT isn't the Doctor.

That's undoubtably a factor but the show is bigger than any one actor. Anyone who just watches for the actor isn't really a fan of DW. I didn't watch series 1 because I was a fan of CE. It's sad if just wanting to watch DT as the Doctor accounts for 5m viewers.

We haven't got the final rating for TBBang yet, so its likely to be half that.

What's on TV states that TPO was the most watched programme on saturday 19th.

5.2 million viewers, (beating the football!!)

I think this proves the "Good Weather" theory if the most watched programme got 5.2. No worries there, then

That's something. Maybe we should be comparing the figures to the finale for series 2?

Not remotely. BBC News is editorially independent and separate from, say, BBC Wales or BBC Fiction.

That's simply a news report on overnight ratings, not any form of official perspective on how the show has performed.

Look at it it this way - in all likelihood the lowest final ratings (that's before adding in BBC Three repeat figures or iPlayer) for Series Five will have been 6.44 million. If every episode had got that, and no more, then a family drama show, on in a very early evening slot, on a Saturday, against very difficult competition and weather, would have outperformed pretty much every non-soap drama, usually shown in 8 or 9pm primetime weekday slots, they have.

As it is the average final Series Five rating (to date) of 7.84 million would have the producers of those other dramas weeping into their pillows. And the (non inclusive of iPlayer) weekly reach - lowest point 7.42 million; average 8.76 million (to date) - would have had those producers wondering if they were in the same jobs.

Of course the BBC will actually have stats to indicate how many of those huge levels of iPlayer requests represent new/unique viewers too.

Add in the level of positive critical reaction and the high AIs (and yes - whether up or down on average, they still remain high).

So, really, no. If anyone in the BBC expressed disappointment in the show's performance this year they'd be laughed at, and Moffat won't be having 'difficult meetings' at all.

Now - possibly those in the scheduling department may be answering some questions, but that's another matter.


'The Eleventh Hour' was:
[LIST][*]On Easter Holiday Weekend[*]Faced little competition[*]Had poorer weather to deal with[*]Followed the biggest publicity drive of the series[*]Featured a crowd gathering hook in the fact of a new Doctor[/LIST]
Those big audiences can't be taken for granted. Doctor Who does not have an actively interested audience of 8 - 10 million. It has an actively interested audience of 6 - 6.5 million (possibly slightly higher), many of who regularly timeshift now (and over two million chose to do so for the series opener). Anything above that represents as many of the available casual/'watch because it was on' audience as can be persuaded to pick Who as their best option.

Whatever we may think of 'The Big Bang' - it didn't, this year, have a sufficiently big hook to persuade enough of the casuals to be in at 6.05pm on a hot summer Saturday, and of those who were, World Cup footie build-up and Andy Murray were sufficiently big hooks to pull them away.

So the finale will get a very big final audience rather than a stonkingly huge one.

Give Smith and the team time to build-up the new era, give a future finale a later slot and less awkward competition, and those casuals will be back (they've always come back in the past).


Falling back from 'excellent' to 'excellent' ('85' is the point at which an AI figure is seen as excellent, '90' is 'exceptional').

BTW - the final five AI figures in order:

85
86
87
88
89