BBC Worldwide are releasing individual Blu-ray sets for Series 1-4 of Doctor Who in the UK on 31 August 2015. The discs, upscaled to 1080i HD originally formed part of the Series 1-7 box set in 2013. Australia have had the individual Series 1-4 Region B sets since 2013.

Doctor Who News has been informed that the new 1-4 releases are identical in specifications as the 1-7 set. This means the discs will play at 24fps instead of the native 25fps.

Doctor Who has been nominated in five categories in the 2015 BAFTA Cymru Awards, although missing out in the main Best Drama Category.

Peter Capaldi is nominated as Best Actor for his performance in Dark Water, while Jenna Coleman earns her nomination for Best Actress for her emotionally charged performance in Kill the Moon.

Nominated for Best Editing is Will Oswald, again for Dark Water. Oswald has been an editor on the series since 2007 and has won BAFTA Wales awards for editing in 2002 and 2009.

The production team have also been nominated for Best Special and Visual Effects for Last Christmas while the new title sequence earns a nomination for Best Titles and Graphic Identity.

The awards honour excellence in broadcasting and production within film and television in Wales. The winners will be announced on Sunday 27 September at the St David’s Hall, Cardiff.

Candy Jar Books have announced an exclusive release for those who pre-order the next book in their Lethbridge-Stewart series, The Schizoid Earth:

The Doctor Who Missing Episodes Discussion Group on Facebook asked its members to post questions to Sue Malden, former and first ever Television Archive Selector at the BBC. Sue was responsible for saving a lot of early Doctor Who episodes from destruction. In the Q&A published yesterday, Sue gave a lot of previously unknown insight into the story of why and how the BBC destroyed the material and what it would have taken to rescue it.

There was a loan record set up for the Daleks Master Plan episode, it was sent to the Blue Peter film editor in October 1973 and it was logged that the print never came back to the Library. The Tenth Planet episode was not originally logged on Infax/FLOL which implies that it was accessed from Enterprises at Villiers House, as with certain other clips that survive from missing episodes of Dr Who.

Read the full Q&A here.

Another development on the topic of missing Doctor Who episodes is the announcement of Philip Morris attending the Pandorica Convention. Philip is the owner of Television International Enterprises Archives Ltd (TIEA) and is known for discovering nine Troughton episodes in 2013. This will be his first appearance on an unofficial convention. The Pandorica 2015 will be held in Bristol from 25th to 27th September 2015.

Doctor Who News have a number of prizes courtesy of BBC Books and BBC Audio available to win in competitions, as detailed below! In order to enter, please send your answer along with your name, address and where you saw the competition to the respective email address - please note whether the competition is worldwide or UK only. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

The closing date for all competitions will be Sunday 6th September.

The two Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular shows set for New York have been cancelled. The shows were scheduled for 7 October 2015 at Barclays Center in New York and were to be hosted by Michelle Gomez.

An email was sent to ticket holders with the following message:
A message on the Barclays Center website states: "there are no plans to reschedule them at this time."

The latest circulation figures for publications have been released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the January to June 2015 period, which indicates that Doctor Who Magazine has taken a significant knock on its circulation. The report revealed the magazine has dropped 23.2% of readers since the July to December 2014 period. Doctor Who Adventures changed publisher during the Jan-Jun 2015 period. The last issue under Immediate Media (#363, 25 March 2015) the total circulation was 24,441, while Issue 1 (23rd April 2015) under Panini was 19,873. Between July and December 2014 the magazine dropped 2.09% of its circulation.

The full breakdowns can be found by clicking on the relevant linked publication certificate below.


DWM's editor, Tom Spilsbury, told Doctor Who News:

German DVD distributor Pandastorm Pictures sent out a newsletter today announcing changes to the DVD format and to the release schedule.

Dear Doctor Who fans,
while many of you are still waiting in excitement for the release of The Five Doctors this week, we are currently working on the releases of the sixth Doctor. The first volume will be out on 27th November 2015.

We originally planned to release the dubbed episodes of the sixth Doctor in two volumes. At the time we didn't know that the included bonus features of Volume 1 would make it 10 DVD's instead of the planned 7 DVD's. Because of very expensive authoring, post-production and production of this set, we would have to increase the price - which would lead to lower sales in the retail stores.

That is why we decided to produce a 5-disc-set for Volume 1, making it three volumes instead of two. We hope you understand.

This is the new release schedule:

Release	Discs	Content	Release date
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 1	5 DVD's	Zweimal Einstein (The Twin Dilemma) Angriff der Kybermänner (Attack of the Cybermen) Revolte auf Varos (Vengeance on Varos) Die Rache des Meisters (The Mark of the Rani)	27th Nov 2015
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 2	5 DVD's	Androiden in Sevilla (The Two Doctors) Das Amulett (Timelash) Planet der Toten (Revelation of the Daleks)	26th Feb 2016
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 3	tba	Season 23	27th May 2016

Pandastorm's current release Fünf Doktoren (The Five Doctors) will be out this week on 28th August 2015 and can be pre-ordered via Amazon Germany.

Doctor Who has lost out in the 2015 Hugo awards.

The 2014 episode Listen, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon was nominated in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category. The episode came second, behind the Canadian science fiction television series Orphan Black. Last year's winner Game of Thrones came third.

The results were announced at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention, held at Spokane in Washington State.

Today marks fifty years since the first Peter Cushing Dalek film was released in UK cinemas. Dr Who and the Daleks was based on Terry Nation's 1964 serial The Daleks, with the story being adapted to the big screen by Milton Subotsky. The film was directed by Gordon Flemyng who had previously directed William Hartnell in episodes of The Army Game.


Although initial reviews of the film were not too kind, they didn't deter the British public from parting with their hard-earned money. The film was twentieth biggest British box office moneymaker in 1965. In August 1965 BFI's Monthly Film Bulletin posted their review of the film:
Peter Cushing himself later revealed in a 1986 interview that he was offered the role of the Doctor in the TV series but said he couldn't accept the offer as he was "otherwise engaged" but went on to say even if he was available he wasn't sure he would take the role. His reasons for this was because he "didn't really care for the Doctor Who television series", stating that "they weren't my cups of tea". He added that "the Daleks did rather get on my nerves".

On 2012's DVD release of Death to the Daleks, an extra was included entitled Cushing and Castle which looked at the casting of Peter Cushing and Roy Castle in Dr Who and the Daleks.

In 2013 Studio Canal released a new digitally restored version of the film on DVD and Blu-ray to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. A screening for Dr Who and the Daleks and the follow-up Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. was organised by The Doctor Who Appreciation Society and held at Riverside Studios. The event was held on 26 May 2013, which would have been Cushing's 100th birthday.

Competition

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Dr Who and the Daleks, Doctor Who News is offering readers the chance to win a copy of the film on either DVD or Blu-ray, courtesy of Studio Canal.

To be in with a chance of wining simply answer the following question:
Please send your answers along with your name, address and where you heard about the competition (news site, news app, other website, etc.) to comp-DrWhoDaleksFilm@doctorwhonews.net with the subject "Technicolor Daleks". The competition is open to UK residents only, closing date: 31st August 2015. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

Artwork

One again artist Deborah Taylor has created us a piece of artwork to go with the anniversary. The design is based on Chris Achilleos's cover of David Whitaker's Target novelisation of The Daleks.