Doctor Who Audience Figures

@Ursa

Actually I thought is was longer than four episodes. I seem to recall there was one story line that took up almost the whole season, but after looking at the internet I see they rarely lasted longer than seven weeks.

And no, it doesn't please me that they are missing.

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the 'oldies' again
 
I seem to recall there was one story line that took up almost the whole season

That sounds like you might be thinking of: The Trial of a Time Lord - the Colin Baker series that went over 14 episodes and 4 serials in 1986.

However, the longest single serial in Classic Who was: "The Daleks' Master Plan" which was 12 episodes. This was series 3 (with William Hartnell as the Doctor). Series 3 had 45 episodes (the episodes were 25 minutes each) and consisted of ten separate serials.

Actually I thought is was longer than four episodes

The Celestial Toymaker serial had only 4 episodes. Again it was a series 3 serial with a 25-min episode length.
 
Bagpuss, didn't the Master Plan serial not feature, or feature only briefly, the Doctor and his companions, instead focusing on entirely one-off characters in the Who universe? Think I read the book of it.
 
The one I'm thinking about had Who (I think Pertwee) wrestling with a room full of plastic tubes that hung from the ceiling. And yes I do seem to recall they all got split up and had their own problems to solve. Actually thinking about it, I think I enjoyed it at the time apart from the dragging on a bit aspects.

Oops, sorry @Dave gone off topic.
 
There was also the Tom Baker "Key to Time" series (the one with Mary Tamm as Romana). They had to find six segments of a crystal type thing (the key) that were scattered around the universe - there was also something about a Black and a White Guardian. Each segment was found during a separate story (in the usual 4 episode format (maybe the last story was longer?)) and that took up the whole of a series. So not one story over an entire series exactly, but linked.
 
It's impossible to accurately compare currents ratings with Classic Who. Even going back to 2005 is hard because the market has changed so much. There's way more choice in what and how to watch plus a world wide audience to taking into account.

Yes. I'm actually amazed by how low the viewer numbers can be and still hit the top 10. But I probably shouldn't be: I haven't watched broadcast TV in at least five years, except on a few occasions when visiting friends who still have it (which is where I saw the few episodes of the new Who series that I have seen).
 
I think Jodi Whittaker has been excellent, the problem with this series (for me) is the same as the Capaldi era - to writing is absolutely awful. Add to that the weak production team that's been brought in and the fact that they don't believe in Whittaker - why else would they insist on three companions, one of them a bigger male star than Whittaker? The Xmas edition has added another 3 established names to the roster - they're trying to buy an audience with big stars.
 
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It seems the figures reflect my own feeling: Moffat was not a good choice to lead an entire season. Yes he was behin Blink, one of the most beloved and creative episodes, but yikes, his seasons took a nosedive in quality. His tendency is to beat you over the head with flat characters making redundant speeches about how important the doctor is, advancing the plot at a glacial place towards an unsatisfying conclusion.
Did I mention I don't like Moffat's showruning?
 


To me, the most interesting numbers here are the matching ratings for Eccleston and Whittaker. Fans gave as much attention to the first woman Doctor as they gave to the return of the show after an absence of more than a decade and a half. That's significant.
Something tells me that Whittaker will beat Tenant's 80m in subsequent seasons/series.
 
My feeling on all those figures is as follows:
kept
CE: the return of the Doctor - brings in old fans and new viewers (presumably none who saw the film...)
DT: kept the fans (new and old) of the CE run and brought in new fans (quite likely female) who liked DT.
MS: most likely kept the older fans who appreciated the longer, more complicated story lines. And I suspect Karen Gillan appealed to a certain demographic...
PC: first season ran off the back of MS but then people realised how weak the stories were.
JW: almost certainly gained viewers because of the novelty value and girls (and women) because the Doctor was a woman. I suspect the average age was lower because the stories were lighter and more self-contained. I also suspect that longer running fans were lost.

For me, which will come as no surprise to those Chroners who have read my previous comments, I thought Jodie was good overall*, three companions were too much, and the scripts poor - oh, and too much sonicing. I'll be tuning in to the New Year's Special and the next series (in 2020!) because I am a fan of Doctor Who but I hope the writing changes.

*No disrespect intended towards Jodie - I'm reminded of the Extras episode with Sir Ian MacKellen...

How do I know what to say? I have a script with the words written down.
How do I know where to stand? Sometime tells me.
 
To me, the most interesting numbers here are the matching ratings for Eccleston and Whittaker... Something tells me that Whittaker will beat Tenant's 80m in subsequent seasons/series.
Those figures confirm what we already knew, but with some caveats: Whittaker's Season was only 10 episodes which makes it either easier or harder to maintain a higher mean average. Secondly, there seems to be a 7.9/8.0 million ceiling. It might be impossible to ever reach higher than that.
 
Would be interesting to know what the figures were for the real series 1, with the original Dr Who, and since.
How much of the current high readings with Jodie are due to a desire to find something amazing, after the groundwork done by recent doctors? As much as I think she makes a brilliant Dr Who, the current series is watched by us more in the hope of rekindling emotions from past series rather than enjoyment of the current one - which is sadly lacking. There used to be one companion - now there are three plus the one who died. Too many to build the close chemistry, like that achieved in the past.
 
Would be interesting to know what the figures were for the real series 1, with the original Dr Who, and since.
There is a link in the first post. I know it was a long post but there was a lot to say.

As I said there, those figures are not really comparable - smaller population, one single chance to view it, no DVD sales or online viewing, British audience only, different day and showing time, shorter, and a serial rather than a series, only two TV channels with much larger audience shares, little science fiction on TV, and no online forums for people to complain about it, over and over again.
 
I've been thinking about this.

The consolidated viewing figures are heavily skewed towards more recent doctors because of the ubiquity of different catch up formats.

The ratings numbers seem to have constantly fallen from the opening numbers including the finale (a friend of mine thinks this was due to no high stakes and no arc buildup - having not watched the series I can't comment but that seems a common problem reported with the finale.)

This series also has a terrible audience score on rotten tomatoes (given that it has a good critics score).
 
The consolidated viewing figures are heavily skewed towards more recent doctors because of the ubiquity of different catch up formats.
But the early doctors benefitted because there was -- give or take an anomaly with the first doctor (the first series, I think) -- no chance to see a programme after it had been on air, so viewers had no alternative but to watch if they ever wanted to see it.

I let my parents know that I had to be in front of the TV (or behind the sofa) when the show went out... and on the one occasion when I wasn't -- a Christmas shopping trip to town overran -- I made it very clear that this was never to happen again.
 
@SilentRoamer I would not take the audience figure on RT much in account as they were heavily compromised. Give a look over to certain internet places we shan't mention that organized intentional low score spam because *hurr durr female doctor hurr durr SJWs hurr durr minorities hurr durr propaganda hurr durr hates white males hurr durr oh you get the point*. You can look over majority of audience reviews and a lot of them are in that same vein. Most balanced reviews have it somewhere at a lukewarm score of 3/5 stars and I would put it somewhere there as well. It is a critical darling, but I think it had some serious flaws overall.
 

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