I agree. The great thing (God I am getting older!!) about the BBC is that it can take views of its content and consider it all a win. After all its other channels that need to be concerned about live figures. Why would the Beeb care if we watch Saturday or Sunday or Wednesday? We are still watching, So it may not be event tv, its still watched tv.

Even so, I do think that being tied to tv scheduling is a thing of the past, and it would appear that the Beeb are cool with that.

Were they final ratings or just overnights?

Feel like throwing some sort of tantrum. I know there are lovers and haters of what Moffat is doing. But imho and I know I'm not alone, that was the best opener they've done. Complex, alot of fun, entertaining and not confusing, just interesting.
For one I blame the time slot. Why does the BBC put it on so early? Their flagship show?? Is 7 every Saturday too much to ask? Or do they want to avoid going up against BGT, which miraculously still gets viewers?

Yet another thread about ratings! Why can people not use the main ratings thread where they will see all these worries have been answered?

Final ratings for The impossible Astronaut were 8.86 million so over 2 million people caught up with it after it aired. As I am sure will happen with Day of the Moon.

It was still the 2nd most watched program on TV last night, BGT being first which was also down on previous weeks ratings. :yawn:

Overnights don't matter so much for the Beeb as the main point of overnights is for advert revenue. As long as finals are healthy, which they are that is all that matters.

But we've already seen ratings bob up and down by a million or more from week to week over the years. When it happened in previous years the trend did not get worse and worse. It carried on bobbing up and down.

If we see a truly significant downward trend of the things that matter most (share, final ratings and overnights) consistently over the series it might then be a good point to start discussing the causes. I see some carts being put before horses here.

It goes almost without saying that everyone involved would have been delighted with record breaking unbelievably high overnights. It does not, however, follow, that lowish overnights signifies much. We simply have to wait for all the information. If the current style of the show is a disaster the BBC will probably do something about it.

It is a bit of a cpncern seeing the ratings drop by 1.1m, and it will be interesting to see the total viewers to see if the final figures are 1.11m down on the 8.86m figure for TIA.

There is also the additional concrete that the new longer story arc requires more committed viewing than was the case previously .

But with the series finishing in the Winter, with cooler weather, ratings are likely to be back up and although the current ratings are disappointing, they are not the end of the world.

Except to say that there's nothing particularly disappointing about 8.86 million (the opposite?). Nor anything unprecedented about a million drop, even for a two parter. Overnight's are a bit pants. That is all we can say for now.

It didn't actually say, but I am assuming they were the final ratings, simply based on how long ago those episodes aired. It would seem strange to list incomplete ratings for episodes that aired years ago.

Those were the final ratings. The overnights were 8.6 and 6.9 million - a drop of 1.7 million.

On overnights alone:

'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances' saw a fall of 0.4 million.

'The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit' saw a fall of 0.4 million.

'Human Nature/The Family of Blood' saw fall of 0.5 million.

'The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky' saw a fall of 0.5 million.

'The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang' saw a drop of 0.8 million.

While most of these stories maintained most or all of their gaps in the consolidated figures and weekly reaches, both parts of the Series Five finale actually recorded identical weekly reaches (both with and without iPlayer) - which shows that big falls in the overnights can very much be made up via other opportunities to view.

Basically DW is caught between a rock and a hardplace.

you have a dire show on before it barely reaching a million viewers.THEN the BBC using DW to try and boost the ratings of that terrible Dance show.The BBC is being funded by us and surely part of that remit is making sure the BEST shows are on at the BEST times.

there is no way in hell DW should be aired at 6pm.the 7pm slot is perfect

The BBC clearly do not care about it's overnight rating. Moffat said as much on twitter this week and there's no reason to believe he's wrong.

(Although having seen some of Don't Scare the Hare, I'd never complain about Total Wipeout as the lead in to DW again!)

Total Wipeout is like Mastermind when you compare it to DStH.

Now is the time for whoever is responsible for Saturday night TV at the BBC to take action. Not in a couple of weeks. Not wait and see. NOW!!
1. Dont scare the hare.
Pull it from the schedules. Stick it on CBBC where it belongs.
2. Replace it with Pink Panther or Tom and Jerry. Something that mums and dads remember and kids will love.
3. Move SYTYCD to 6pm.
4. Move Dr Who to 7pm where it belongs.

For the Autumn you need to commission a show that the family will watch. Bring back the Gen Game.

Yep, I'm sure this'll convince them.

Quite.

8.86 million, to put it into context, is:
[LIST][*]Higher than every episode of Series One bar 'Rose' (it equals 'The End of the World').[*]Higher than every episode of Series Two bar two episodes that were boosted by following big football matches.[*]Higher than every episode of Series Three.[*]Higher than all but four episodes of Series Four (and not far off three of those).[*]Higher than all but one episode of Series Five.[*]Higher than the series openers for Series Two and Three, and just 0.28 million behind the opener for for Series Four. It seems it takes the advent of a new Doctor to outdo the start of Series Six.[/LIST]
In terms of viewership drops:
[LIST][*]Series One saw a drop from episode one to episode two of 2.6 million on overnights and 2.84 million on final ratings.[*]Series Two saw a drop from episode one to episode three (episode two was heavily boosted by football) of 0.4 million on overnights and 0.31 million on final ratings. one more football boost aside, the ratings, both overnight and final, continued to fall until they rose again for episode ten.[*]Series Three saw a drop from episode one to episode two of 1.4 million on overnights and 1.48 million on final ratings.[*]Series Four saw a drop from episode one to episode two of 0.3 million on overnights and 0.1 million on final ratings, and then a further drop for episode three of 1.2 million on overnights and 1.54 million on final ratings.[*]Series Five saw a drop from episode one to episode two of 1.3 million on overnights and 1.66 million on final ratings.[/LIST]If 'Day of the Moon' were to timeshift just 2 million (highly realistic, possibly even pessimistic, bearing in mind the timeshifts for Series Five and 'The Impossible Astronaut'), then that would be an overnight drop of 1.1 million, and a final figure drop of 1.46 million - in the light of how previous series performed, hardly a shocker.

If 'Day of the Moon' did end up with 'just' 7.4 million viewers, it would be equal to or more than achieved by 24 previous episodes (nearly two series worth). If it matched the 2.3 million timeshift of 'The Impossible Astronaut', and ended up with 7.7 million viewers, then it would match or overtake a further ten episodes.

In short - if anyone thinks there is now spinning going on to protect an unprecendented fall in the ratings, they simply haven't been keeping up.

The best post in this thread above just looking more in to it with Impossible Astronaut 44.3 % share is pretty damn good actually. Only around 20 million were watching tv that hour people can say great weather bad time slot is an excuse it really isn't.

The AI for 'The Impossible Astronaut' was an excellent 88. Hardly evidence of alienation.

Audience drops (and rises) of a million or more happen all the time. The overnights for the first four episode of Series One, for example, went 9.9, 7.3, 8.3, 7.0 million. Series Three saw a largely steady decline from 8.0 million for episode one to 5.5 million for episode nine. The first four episode of Series Three went 8.2, 6.8, 8.0, 6.3 million. The first five episodes of Series Four saw a steady slide - 8.4, 8.1, 6.9, 6.4, 5.9.

Every year people think they are seeing a new trend, representing an alienation/loss of viewers, when we're merely seeing business as usual. If that was what we were seeing all of those previous years, then heaven only knows how the show has survived to this point...!

In fact, why don't we just make all television like it was in the 70s?

I'm not worried at all.

If the BBC pulled Doctor Who on these figures, they would have to pull all of their other shows except for Eastenders.

If the ratings went up, then they'd be doing better than for the greater part of the RTD era as well, whatever the mix of overnight or timeshift viewers.

Your argument is predicated on the series performing worse now than it did, and that simply isn't the case. Shifting viewing patterns doesn't equal lost viewers.


The AI for the opening episode was 88, the ratings for the opening episode were stonkingly high, higher than most previous episodes. We don't know how the second episode has done yet, but it seems likely to have performed very well indeed (compared to previous series and other drama series).

What's supposed to be our evidence for thinking the viewers aren't liking the direction the show is going in?

All of them were new viewers. You're confusing the consolidated viewership (that's everyone who watches a specific broadcast either live or recorded, but with any individual viewer only counted once), with the weekly reach (which can include iPlayer and BBC Three/HD showings, and where an individual can, in practice, be recorded as viewing more than once). The consolidated figure of 8.86 million is entirely unique viewers.

All the multiple viewings, via iPlayer or other means, of you and your mate, would make no difference to that ratings figure whether you were part of the BARB panel or not.


See above.


Actually - that's pretty much what it is. A very large and comprehensive, carefully selected demographically representative panel of viewers with redundancies and checks built in. You could make the panel even bigger, and still not get a noticeably more accurate reading of the public at large. Plus, as was once famously demonstrated in a US presidential election, try to sample above a certain level (even up to the point of sampling everyone) and your accuracy can actually fall, hilariously so.

General elections, with millions of voters, can be predicted with a tiny margin of error via polls of just a 1000 people. When we're dealing with polling of fact (what people watched) rather than opinion or intention, and with a panel ten times that size, then there's little to worry about in terms of accuracy.

Well, some wonderfully well defined statistical anaylsis there by Dr Thete. Figures are nothing until they're properly compiled and compared, which has just been done here. That really should put the issue to bed, for anyone who wants to judge these ratings in an unbiased fashion.

Still, I'm sure it's all still an excuse.

I suspect that the antics of a certain animatronic bunny may have a lot to do with the ratings tailing off. After witnessing this apology for a programme I am surprised that anyone retunes to BBC 1 all night!. That and my suspicion that Mr Moffat is in danger of becoming just a bit too anxious to cater for the DW anorak brigade and leaving younger and less fanatical viewers behind.

Except that they aren't.


Except that there's no evidence that he is, and enough that he isn't.

See, how am I going to get away with sweeping generalisations if you're going to insist on shooting them down with actual facts?