That counts on the viewer being honest though. Nothing to stop you clicking yes even if you have watched it before.

The show or Matt are not going to be axed. Get over it.

I'm perfectly happy to have it explained to me! I don't care if you think I'm stupid or anything. Put me right. That's what I was asking you for earlier. It's only information - if you have some I don't, great. Share it or what's the point of discussing it on a forum?

I don't say the show will be axed.......yet. It will one day though. What I am trying to say is about the overnights. How do we really honestly know what was being discussed behind closed doors. I just believe that the BBC are indeed talking about the overnights and may be evaluating the factors responsible. It's just I have constantly been told that no one at the BBC cares about the overnights (hard to believe) and that the timeshift make up for it.

I don't deny the timeshift figures. Never have. I just think that what the BBC say in a public statement is not necessarily the same as what is being discussed at executive level.

I have no worries about Matt. he has proved to be a brilliant doctor. Axing him would damage the show far more than viewing figures could do!

i have been constantly berated for not taking into account the timeshift figures. I have taken them into account. But those who constantly berate me seem reluctant to even take my viewpoint into consideration. If their views are right, why also can't mine be?

Overnight show the audience that sit down to watch Dr Who when it is televised. If BBC didn't care about overnights, they wouldn't be so worried about scheduling.

The overall viewing figures are good, but the audience that will sit down and watch when the BBC think it will get its highest viewing figures are falling.

It means that either the audience is changing its viewing habits and / or Dr Who isn't the draw it once was, but is still good tv, so people will watch it, but not go out of their way to watch it.

The simple truth is - the ratings have been excellent. That is the simple unvarnished, unspun truth. Not merely good, not very good, but excellent. For all that some seem determined to believe, against all reason and common sense, that the overnights are special and matter more, the BBC know better. That isn't speculation - that's fact.

And so the BBC will look at the actual, full ratings, and they will see that the lowest point the series has reached is a stonking 6.44 million (and really - if anyone doesn't know that is a stonkingly great figure for a drama series, they simply haven't been paying attention for the past few years), and they will be happy. Because to be otherwise, would be beyond stupid of them.

Now - if anyone still thinks that the series, or Smith, or Moffat are in danger - after a critical and ratings success filled series, with high public appreciation, a record HD figure, astonishing iPlayer request figures and more, because a few newspapers decided to pretend that this was still the 1980s, ignore timeshifting, ignore external events, and make a thing of the finale overnights... knock yerselves out.


It's not down to the BBC to add the iPlayer ratings. Barb will do that - and they have plans to add in online viewing. That will cover BBC iPlayer, ITVPlayer, 4OD, Demand Five and Sky Player. It isn't BARB's place to judge the success of such services, just record viewer numbers.

Just for "OMG"s sake...

According to the guy that populates the BARB tables on a monday lunchtime (usually), the official figures for last week (ie the ones that include TPO) may not be available for another, wait for it, 6 weeks!

K

No it won't. The BBC would never publicly come out and say Doctor Who is axed. If they wanted to stop making it they'd say they believed the show was tired and in need of rebooting; that there would be more but it might be a while.

The last time the BBC axed Doctor Who, it lasted about a week before there was a reverse ferret due to the fact they were concerned about a large scale protest outside the House of Commons, that would have got them negative publicity from every newspaper in the world. There is no chance they'd do it again. (Source: The documentary on the The Trial of a Timelord dvd.)

How odd. I wonder why it might take so long?

Here's the post:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...&postcount=223

K

Noone here knows what is being said behind closed doors. I get the impression they're just stating their opinion in fairly strong terms. Don't let it get you down.

I agree with you that it's perfectly reasonable to believe that the BBC might have concerns (to a greater or lesser degree) about overnights, even having taken into account the timeshifting. I bet there are people in the BBC still love it when they know they've got "event tv" happening. Only natural. They live and breath TV.

I also think that when SM and everyone else involved says in public "we're not worried at all about overnights. look at the timeshift/iplayer" one can easily respond with "well they would say that, wouldn't they?". And it's just as easy to believe that they're saying it because they believe it to be true. That's why we're not going to get anywhere hammering any of this home as facts, either way.

But, even having acknowledged the above, I (personal opinion based on no inside knowledge or experience whatsoever - it's a public forum) rather imagine that the relatively low overnights compared to previous years alone isn't going to jeopardise the show. Even if strong words between BBC execs are going on. There are so many factors (weather, scheduling, clashing live events, timeshifting, streaming) before they get to thinking the public are just fed up with it (due to actors, scripts, style, fatigue etc.) At the same time they do seem to have much information that suggest the public who watch it, and the mainstream press reviewers, do like what they see.

So entirely possible we might see them doing things that look to us like attempts to get good overnights (for any faction of the BBC that thinks they're still really really important.) But even if those fail, I don't see it as the end for Who. Because from all public indications from within the industry, they seem to know that drama (in particular) is going the way of timeshift.

It's not something I'm massively worried about. But I do think you've made your point effectively.

Yeah, good point. I'm sure that most people wouldn't lie, what would be the point? Still, it wouldn't be right to use something which could be abused easily.

I have a question about IP's which is slightly off topic but I'm going to ask anyway. If my laptop and PC use the same router then how can Sky Player recognise what one is the main computer. I would have assumed that they use IP addresses but they can't based on what I just learned. If anyone could fill me in, I'd appreciate it.

I'm not sure, but maybe the aforementioned "cookies"? Perhaps one was placed on the computer that was used for the original registration?

K

Thank you for your kind response. What you have said is basically what I was thinking. cheers.

The thing that convinces me that the BBC are still favourable to overnights is when a programme is broadcast and gets good overnights, they rave about it on their teletext pages. They also only briefly mention that once timeshift figures are taking account then it will be blah! blah! blah!

even on the BBC's own entertainment page on the web yesterday it was reported that "early scheduling affected the show along with hot weather and Wimbledon" and it went on to report the overnights in a somewhat negative fashion.

I do concede that maybe drama watching is changing and that this is something us old stick in the muds have to get used to. However, I am not going to concede just yet, by agreeing wholeheartedly to the suggestions that the BBC are "thrilled" with the "excellent" ratings.

I still believe that the BBC consider Doctor Who "event TV".
I still regard it as such. Therefore, I still believe that the BBC will want to know why overnights were not as strong as previous series and why viewers no longer regard it as event TV. Of course they will be pleased that viewing figures overall are strong. But overall, they will want to know what improvements can be made to try and achieve that "event TV" status for next year.

I don't think so as I normally delete cookies which means it would lose that indication. It could be using a flash cookie as I don't have anything to delete them. In fact, it probably is that. Thanks for that, wouldn't evben have considered the possibility of cookies.

Not entirely sure what some papers are going on about tbh, whinging about the overnights, must be the silly season. It easily won it's slot in spite of the early start time, the beeb moving the start time around every single bloody week, people recording it and watching it later, gorgeous weather outside, viewing figures down across all channels, anyone expecting 10 million after all that is living in cloud cuckoo. The timeshift will be insanely high anyway I suspect, no worries.

They probably have a way to monitor what the local IP address of a computer is. I am no expert on Sky Player though.

As I said earlier, when you connect via a router all computers will have the same external IP address. As this is the IP address you are assigned by your ISP.

However, all computers that connect to the net via a specific router will all have local ip addresses which are assigned by the router.

I am sure either or both or these can be recorded. The external ip address is easy to detect the internal ip would be a bit more work but not outside the powers of a company like Sky. Especially as they are likely to be providing the customers Broadband as it is so will have better access to this information.

I must admit I'm slightly curious to what extent Dr Who relies on its budget allocation due to its status as "event", "appointment to view", "good overnights" etc. And if that status still has to be maintained to keep the money in the pot given the supposed shift in thinking about these things. I really don't know. And I'm sure that budget allocation is complex, involves many factors and an element of media industry bonkersness.

I bet it's not a simple "Event-iness%" column in a spreadsheet. Or maybe it is.

Okay thanks. I'm guessing from your post that the internal ip is not just the external ip with an extra number to show its place.

Just to clarify, Doctor Who's budget is comparable to other drama shows. There seems to be some kind of misconception it's budget is massively bigger. It isn't.

I didn't think the BBC operated on a "different budgets for different shows" policy. At least, not within the same bracket. I remember reading that DW gets the same budget as all BBC1 drama programmes which means that "New Tricks" gets the same money yet DW has a much higher dependency on FX, sets and convincing alien/historical set ups that the crew have to be very creative with their money. It was noted that despite DW raking in all the cash, it doesn't get a single extra penny given to its budget as that profit is spread across the whole of the Beeb.

So to summarise, it gets the same amount but as each drama series varies in length the only reason it will be allocated more than New Tricks for example, is that it has 13 episodes and not 7. is that correct?

If that is the case, then it really is bonkers!

I think that sums it up pretty well.

I remember the Grant/Naylor team making Red Dwarf used to complain that they had to make a multi camrea, multi set sitcome, with all the attendant FX work on the same budget allocated to Dinnerladies, which was a single set show. The BBC budgeting department works in a very odd manner.

That answers my question then. The "event-iness" doesn't much come into it. They either want to do Who or not. It's a lot simpler than I thought might be the case.


I don't agree. I like the BBC giving equal / roughly equal the same amount of money to some minor, one off, non-event drama as they do to an episode of Dr Who. I love Dr Who, but I also really love some of the really wonderful non-mainstream dramas that the BBC do. I wouldn't like Dr Who to suck up all the budget for these things just because it's popular or needs some spaceship money. Lord Reith and all that. Dr Who is probably the only mainstream BBC drama I watch. BBC Four FTW (as our american cousins might say.)

It's very tough for the Who showrunners. But I must say they're doing very well considering.

It's to do with the BBC Charter iirc.

anyway, as we have drifted many miles away from ratings i'll be off now till we actually have some ratings to discuss....