ABC TV Australia has begun screening adverts for the forthcoming debut of series two there. Using the tag, "Do you fancy a Christmas in July?", with clips from "The Christmas Invasion" shows, the 30-second promo doesn't identify the specific date the series is premiering on, only noting that the show is "returning soon". However, as we already reported it will be broadcast starting 8 July on ABC. The ABC website also has preview information. (Thanks to Murray Harper, William Binnie, Adam Kirk and Niall Doran)

Issue #6 of Doctor Who Adventures, the BBC magazine for younger viewers, is out soon, and we have a preview below; click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the cover. (Thanks to BBC Magazines)

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)

Ratings for the twelfth episode of the first season of the new series, Bad Wolf, on US television on the Sci Fi Channel, have come in: the telecast dropped a bit to a 1.02 household rating with an average of 1.3 million viewers, down from the previous broadcast ("Boom Town") two weeks before and the smallest average audience to date for a Doctor Who original this season. The show was on a week-long hiatus, with viewers possibly tuning out after the lack of a broadcast the week before. Season-to-date, Sci Fi reports that Doctor Who is currently averaging a 1.27 household rating and an average audience of 1.5 million viewers for the season. The season finale airs this Friday, June 9.

Overnight ratings for The Impossible Planet, this season's eighth new episode of Doctor Who, show that the episode was viewed by 5.94 million viewers. While the average numbers are down, the lowest single rating for the new series to date (though by a slim margin), the episode scored a 39.8% audience share, a significant boost from the previous weekend. The discrepancy: the total television audience at 7pm was also the lowest since the show began (only 12.4 million viewers watching at that time). The episode itself peaked at 6.78 million viewers in its final quarter-hour. Doctor Who was #2 on the top thirty by audience and top thirty by share lists, beaten only in actual numbers by an episode of Casualty at 8.15 (which itself only scored 6.5 million viewers).

Meanwhile, on BBC Three, the sixth instalment of Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 542,100 viewers (4.7% audience share), an increase from the prior week. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)

The BBC Press Office issued Programme Information (link) for 17-23 June on Friday, with an interview with guest starMarc Warren leading the promotion for episode 10, Love & Monsters, to be aired on 17 June. The actor, who plays Elton Pope in Love & Monsters, notes that "Elton is looking for the Doctor, who he last saw when he was four years old when his mother died, and has been searching for him ever since. He meets a group of people who get together every week to talk about their sightings of the Doctor with an aim of trying to find him, and they become great friends." Warren says that he was "gobsmacked" when he first read the script - "it was all this Elton kid... I couldn't really believe it. It must be quite unusual for Doctor Who to have a [guest] part that's so central - but it definitely worked out well for me." Also released by the Press Office is the Programme Copy for the episode (link) which is reproduced below.

Fans in Australia finally have a debut date for series two of Doctor Who, according to an email sent to a fan by the Audience & Consumer Affairs department of ABC Television reported at the Doctor Who Club of Australia site. According to the note, ABC has recently completed negotiations for rights to show the second series, which will begin on Saturday 8 July at 7.30pm, presumably with "The Christmas Invasion" followed by the thirteen episodes of series two. The ABC website will hopefully soon have details about further scheduling. (Thanks to Adam Kirk and the DWCA)