I get the impression that, when all is said and done, all six series of Doctor Who have pretty much had the same viewing figures.

There may have been a few differences here and there. And more people are obviously watching the show when it suits them rather than when it is initially broadcast.

But over all, its got a loyal, solid, interested and positive audience.

This is the most sensible post of the day for me!

i second this, fantastic post

Yep, but the papers can hardly panic the fans with that, can they?

And the fact that more and more people are actively seeking out the program to watch later marks it out as literately 'Must See TV'.

Who should do really well today in the overnights with a lead-in like Strictly, which usually gets 8-9mill for its premiere episodes, and pretty weak competition (Dad's Army, Red or Black?, Channel 4 News and Law & Order).

Wouldn't be surprised to see upward of 6 or 7 million tonight, hopefully

See, I disagree, I don't think it will do well. Maybe on 'Saturday' ratings, but I think it will do quite low on the 'week' ratings, what with Red or Black.

mind you, 1D are on tonight, so all the 12 year old fans will be watching...

Good point on 1D. Suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

Its nice that we get a good lead-in now rather than something like Scare the Hare (is that what it was called? ) which I'm still sure knocked our overnights a tad.

6 million perhaps, upwards of 7 million is aiming too high, this isn't SCD proper, it's the preview show, which doesn't quite get the ratings of SCD proper, I think it rated in the 7 millions last year. Plus it doesn't change the fact that people like to timeshift DW.

eta: checked and as I thought, the SCD preview show last year had 7.07 million on overnights, 7.73 final ratings.

Honestly have no idea how Who will go tonight, fingers crossed for over 6 million but you never know. That being said can I maybe make one plea to the Internet at large... whatever the Overnights are tomorrow, high low or somewhere in between, please try not to read too much into them and wait for the final figures for a more accurate picture.

Okay, now that's out the way on to The Girl Who Waited! I've been looking forward to this one ever since ComicCon.

Dr Who : The Girl who waited 6 Million

It is reported on the ratings thread that the consolidated figure for Night Terrors is 7.07m, which I guess shows that the mid-season break must be judged a success. It seems to ameliorate the effects of the inevitable mid-season slide.

Yeah, time shift of 1.53 million, which is just a teeny bit disappointing given some recent time shifts (we have been a bit spoiled lately ), possibly because word of mouth wasn't as hot about this episode as the last couple, but another final rating over the seven million mark, and final ratings next week will be interesting to see.

Wonder what the BBC3 figure was... but yes, I suspect that the word of mouth being mixed hurt it a tad, seemed to drop from iPlayer list a bit quicker than normal too. Still, 7.07 for an episode with mixed reviews isn't exactly poor and it'll end up over 8 (probably over 9) when BBC 3 and iPlayer are factored in.

One thing I think it might show, and I want to see how the rest of the series goes on this one, is Who is more or less indifferent to scheduling. Doesn't seem to matter if it's on early or late, spring or autumn the figures are broadly consistent. No wonder the BBC feel confident enough to move it around the schedule!

Yes it looks like the core audience for Doctor Who is around the 5-6million mark, which is pretty good for a drama nowadays

Might have a better overnight next week with a big guest star (David Walliams) + the expectation that the Weeping Angels are in it. Could get over the 6m mark again!

Yes I see what you mean that a higher time shift might have been expected given the lowish overnight rating.

And I also see, having done some rapid research, that actually I seem to be overrating the mid-season slide. A quick glance at the figures for ninth episodes of other series actually reveals that they sometimes dipped as low as 6m (the Satan Pit) which I thought was the usual pattern. But they have also been as high as 7.84 (Forest of the Dead). So it is a mixed pattern as ever.

Not exactly what i was getting at. The average time shift for this series has been around 1.9 million. The over night rating is on a par with the one that A Good Man Goes to War got, but that timeshifted almost 2 million viewers.

I think because the average time shift has been 1.9 million we've gotten in the habit of mentally adding a couple of million to the overnights, but of course there is still going to be fluctuation above and below that figure, as was the case here.

OK, well the lesson to learn here is that I ought to leave this sort of thing to the experts.

Nah, there are no experts here...

Does anyone have any insight into how the show is doing in america this year? I've been wondering whether the allegedly big promo in the US may actually have been about maintaining the profile of the show over here, rather than representing a genuine attempt to crack america.

I'm not sure about the US, but the numbers in Canada are averaging just over 900K . Which is pretty good seeing our population is around 33 million.

Thanks - how does that compare to previous series, and was there a large push in Canada? Certainly, in a large amount of the publicity ahead of the start of the series and surrounding the first couple of episodes, I think the British audience was given the impression it was getting a large push in North America, in the states in particular.

I've had a look around, and I'm having real trouble finding up to date US figures.

It hasn't had a huge push here in Canada. The current provider is SPACE for the new episodes. The CBC is doing repeats of the earlier series'. When the show returned in 2005, the CBC was the only North American provider for the new shows, but there are no numbers for the time. Once it became obvious it would be popular, The SPACE channel bought the rights and has been consistently in the 800 to 900k range.

I forgot to mention that if DW airs the same time a hockey game is on, viewership drops

Here are the BBCA ratings for Doctor Who S6 so far (well, almost all the ratings, as I couldn't find the ratings for 6-7):

Ep. 6-1 - 1.268 million
Ep. 6-2 - 1.001 million
Ep. 6-3 - 0.760 million
Ep. 6-4 - 0.719 million
Ep. 6-5 - 0.604 million
Ep. 6-6 - 0.581 million
Ep. 6-7 - ???

Ep. 6-8 - 0.961 million
Ep. 6-9 - 0.666 million

Heh, this does not surprise me

Just to add a bit to the Canda figures, Let's Kill Hitler was the most watched show ever on Spaced and ended the night as most-watched program overall on Canadian television for adult viewers (18-49 and 25-54). For a show on a channel that's relatively limited in its viewership (it's on a high cable tier I believe?) that's remarkable.