Idiot's Lantern Figures, Plus More Ratings News

Final viewing figures are in from the BARB for The Idiot's Lantern, the seventh episode of the new season, broadcast on 27 May: 6.76 million viewers are said to have tuned into the broadcast, including time-shifted viewers. The episode was seventh highest on the list of total television shows (adjusted for multiple episodes, behind episodes of "Coronation Street," "EastEnders," "New Tricks," "Emmerdale" and "Heartbeat" and the special "Full Length and Fabulous: The Beckham World Cup Party") and eighteenth on the list of the week's total broadcasts. However, the episode only scored a bit less than 2% of a smaller viewing audience than the corresponding episode the previous season, "The Doctor Dances".

Some other BARB final ratings figures are now available. The original broadcast of Doctor Who Confidential on the same night as "The Idiot's Lantern" scored, according to the BARB, 453,000 viewers; the Sunday night repeat of Doctor Who on BBC3 (28 May) had 642,000 viewers, placing it #14 in the list of the top twenty non-terrestrial broadcasts for the week. Also, the repeat of the prior episode, The Age of Steel the night before the next, Friday 26 May, had a total of 394,000 viewers.

Meanwhile, for this past weekend's broadcasts, the Sunday night repeat of The Impossible Planet, the eighth episode of the season, on BBC3 was watched by 662,000 viewers (3.8% audience share) and "Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down," the reduced repeat version, had 421,000 viewers (2.1% share). Doctor Who was the most watched programme on BBC3 on Sunday. Additionally, the night before the broadcast of "The Impossible Planet," Friday night's (2 June) repeat of "The Idiot's Lantern," was watched by 407,500 viewers (2.6% share) while the repeat of "Confidential" originally broadcast with that episode was watched by 212,800 viewers (8.3% share). These figures are overnights reported by Viewingfigures (as opposed to BARB final ratings, which will be available next week.)

Finally, another piece of news regarding "The Impossible Planet": Preliminary figures indicate that it achieved an AI (audience appreciation index) figure of 85, while the AI figure for the broadcast of "Doctor Who Confidential" the same night had an AI figure of 83. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)