September sees the broadcast of ten episodes featuring Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor on Australian and New Zealand television. These screenings are part of the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who on the UKTV Australia and UKTV New Zealand channels.

Each Sunday afternoon during September will see a block of two episodes screened from the 2005 series.

The schedule for the month in both countries is as follows:

1 September
Rose - AU: 4:30pm; NZ: 4:50pm (NZ repeat 2 Sep, 4:30am)
The End of the World - AU: 5:30pm; NZ: 5:40pm

8 September
Aliens of London - AU: 4:30pm; NZ: 3:00pm
World War Three - AU: 5:30pm; NZ: 4:00pm (NZ repeat 9 Sep, 4:35am)

15 September
Dalek - AU: 4:30pm; NZ: 4:45pm
The Long Game - AU: 5:30pm; NZ: 5:40pm (NZ repeat 16 Sep, 4:30am)

22 September
The Empty Child - AU: 4:30pm; NZ: 4:50pm
The Doctor Dances - AU: 5:30pm; NZ: 5:40pm (NZ repeat 23 Sep, 4:35am)

29 September
Bad Wolf - AU: 4:30pm; NZ: 3:50pm
The Parting of the Ways - AU: 5:30pm; NZ: 4:45pm (NZ repeat 30 Sep, 4:45am)

The line-up includes all but three of the entire run of Ninth Doctor episodes. The omissions are The Unquiet Dead, Father’s Day and Boom Town.

Doctor Who has returned to Finland, with all episodes from the first appearance of the Ninth Doctor in Rose through to the 2011 Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe, scheduled for transmission.

The revived series was first shown in 2005 but was not successful despite acquiring a dedicated fan base in the country, and the show was dropped from the schedules after The Christmas Invasion.

The series is now being shown with Finnish subtitles on the YLE TV2 channel, airing at 8pm on weekday evenings. Following transmission, each episode will be available online, but only inside Finland.

Former Head of BBC One Michael Grade had been talking about Doctor Who, discussing the reasons for puting the show on hold in 1985 and the events leading up to the return of the series in 2005.

In the BBC Radio 2 show, On The Box, Grade tells the inside story of Britain's television industry as seen from his personal viewpoint. In this week's edition, Dishing the Dirt, he talks to key players involved in the decisions about the show, including Jonathan Powell, who was Controller of BBC One when the series was axed and Lorraine Heggessey who held that role when the series came back in 2005.

Heggessey tells of the difficulties bringing the show back, with the rights being held by BBC Worldwide, but how she was determined to succeeed. "I just remembered it as an iconic show" she said, "I wanted popular drama at the heart of Saturday night."

In the programme Grade talks about the dislike he felt for the series in 1985, which he felt was dated and past its prime. He remembers how he was awarded the Horse's Ass award by Doctor Who Fans in America, an award which he still has sitting in his loo.

Also in the programme Grade talks to former showrunner Russell T Davies, BBC executive Jane Tranter and former Executive Producer Mal Young, as well as current showrunner Steven Moffat who talks about the expectations for the show as it approaches the 50th Anniversary next year. "It is a concern to stamp the word 50 on a series because it should be brand new every few years. But its great as it does give you an excuse for a party and an excuse to take over television again."

The programme can he heard Worldwide on the BBC iPlayer for the next week.

Australian viewers can now see all episodes of Doctor Who Series 1 and 2 and all episodes of the first two series of Torchwood via Yahoo!7's catchup TV service.

Australian PlayStation 3 owners will find a "Plus7" button on their crossmedia bar (same place as the ABC iView button), and computer users can access the site here.

The episodes are available as a result of a deal between BBC Worldwide Australia and Yahoo!7. The ongoing deal will see future quality BBC content air on the service, either in catch-up following transmission on the Seven Network, or as part of PLUS7’s dedicated library of TV shows.

Other shows included are The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain as well as classic comedy programs like Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones.

Kath Hamilton, Director of Audience, Yahoo!7 said
PLUS7 is free to access via www.yahoo7.com.au/plus7 and is available across Australia.

RIPT Apparel are offering a Doctor Who t-shirt which will be on sale for today only.

The design features a quote from The Ninth Doctor when he comes back for Rose to tell her that his space ship also travels in time. The t-shirt is $10 (about £6) and is available in men's, women's and children's sizes. Alternatively you can purchase the hoodie version for $38 (about £23).

Previous Doctor Who t-shirts from RIPT include the popular "Whosicle" design.

Available for:

Doctor Who has overwhelmingly won the vote held by See Saw and as a result the entire Series One of Doctor Who will be available  to rent from  their website from Tuesday 28th September for 99p. Although the series needs to be purchased today, viewers then have up to 90 days to watch the series.

Because the competition was so popular, SeeSaw, has announced a second Tight Tuesday promotion, just for readers of The Doctor Who News Page.

Voting will be between Doctor Who Series 2, Doctor Who Series 3 and Doctor Who Series 4.
It was intended to have Torchwood as the fourth option, but this has had to be removed due to admin reasons. Instead the three Doctor Who Series are up against Series One of Battlestar Galactica.

Votes need to be made at www.seesaw.com/gallifrey.

Video on Demand service See Saw is giving fans the chance to vote to see the entire Series One of Doctor Who for just 99p.

Christopher Eccleston's performance as the Ninth Doctor is up against Grey's Anatomy, Robin Hood and The Hills in a promotion to find the most popular series. Whichever gets the most Facebook 'like' votes by next Monday morning will be made available to watch for the next ninety days for just 99p.

Votes need to be made on the See Saw website.

Spanish public broadcaster TVE Clan began airing Series 1 of Doctor Who on its kids oriented digital terrestrial channel TVE Clan on 24 November. Episodes are airing weeknights at 8:15PM Central European Time, with repeats on the weekend.

The TV Shows on DVD website reports that Warner Home Video, in addition to their July 4 DVD release of "The Complete First Season" in North America, will issue four individual releases of the first season (in four volumes) in the UMD format, designed for Playstation (PSP) systems. "The Complete First Season: Volume One" through "Volume Four" are also due out on July 4, the same day as the DVD release. (Thanks to David Lambert/TV Shows on DVD)

Ratings for the broadcast of the first season finale on the Sci Fi Channel, The Parting of the Ways, in America are in: the telecast scored a 1.14 household rating with an average of 1.4 million viewers. According to Outpost Gallifrey's source at the Sci Fi Channel, the first full season of the series averaged a 1.26 household rating, with an average audience of 1.5 million views. (Some other statistics for the season: the audience was 63% male, with a median age of 46 years, and scored a 1.00 rating in men ages 18-49 and a 0.62 rating in men 18-34.)

Though the ratings for the broadcast of the first series seem to have been lower than expected, that now doesn't appear to be the case. As reported at the Sci Fi Channel's own news service, Sci Fi Wire, "the new updated Doctor Who boosted SCI FI Channel's ratings on Friday nights by double digits, the network reported. The new version of Doctor Who, produced by the BBC, wrapped its first season on SCI FI on June 9. Doctor Who averaged a 1.3 household rating and 1.5 million total viewers in its 9 p.m. Friday timeslot, a 44 percent increase in ratings and a 54 percent increase in viewership over the same timeslot in the second quarter last year. In key demographics, Doctor Who averaged 778,000 viewers aged 18-49, a 57 percent increase over 2005, and 942,000 viewers aged 25-54, a 56 percent increase." The Futon Critic, a respected source of industry and media news noted the "double-digit ratings growth this quarter on Fridays from 9pm to 10pm versus the time period last year," referring to the fact that Doctor Who was a broadcast original for the network in a time period (March to June) when it normally shows reruns. (Until this series broadcast, Sci Fi's original Friday night series -- Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica -- broadcast in two halves, July through September for the first half of each season, and then January to March for the second half.)

What does this mean for Series Two? A pop-culture website called ICV2 today stated that "The second season will kick off in the U.S. on Sci Fi Channel in October." However, this appears to be simple speculation on the part of the website; Sci Fi has not announced any plans to purchase the second season of the series at this time, although it's a foregone conclusion that if it did, October would be a likely timeframe for it to be shown (as the Stargate shows end their half-season runs in September, while Galactica returns in October, presumably in its regular 10pm timeslot... with, theoretically, space for Doctor Who to run before each new episode at 9pm.) Outpost Gallifrey will keep you posted.