Cold War had an overnight audience of 5.7 million viewers, a share of 26.7% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was again third for the day. where top honours were taken by the return of ITV's talent show, Britain's Got Talent, which had 10.5 million watching and a massive 41.5% share of the audience.

The BBC's talent show, The Voice, had 6.7 million watching.

Doctor Who once more won the time-slot with You've Been Framed! And Famous 4 getting 4.0 million watching.

Final ratings will be released next week, which should see Doctor Who substantially increase its rating once those who timeshift the programme are factored in.

Full ratings data for the week ending 31st March 2013 is now available and puts Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John as the eighth most watched programme in the UK for the week.

The episode achieved 8.44 million viewers had 35.8% share of the available Television audience.

The only thing to beat Doctor Who on BBC One was one episode of EastEnders. On ITV it was beaten by five episodes of Coronation Street and an episode of the detective series staring David Tennant, Broadchurch.

On Saturday 30th March, Doctor Who was the highest rated programme getting 120,000 more viewers than Ant and Dec's Saturday Takeaway, even though the ITV programme had a later start time.

On iPlayer The Bells of Saint John has so far been accessed over 1.4 million times.

BBC Worldwide have announced details for the forthcoming release of The Ice Warriors on DVD. The two-disc set has been provisionally scheduled for release on 26th August 2013 for R2 and 28th August for R4 (a R1 date has yet to be confirmed).

A number of new stills from the animated episodes have also been published, including a recent tweet by producer Chris Chapman comparing the animation with an existing telesnap:

BBC Worldwide have also released a brief video excerpt to demonstrate the animation via their YouTube channel.

Big Finish: Ice Warriors special offer:

Saturday has yet more Ice Warrior excitement, as the Martians return to television in Cold War. To celebrate their appearance Big Finish are running a special offer on their adventures in audio/download over the weekend:

Sunday 14th April sees the broadcast of the six-part 1975 Tom Baker story Genesis of the Daleks on Australian and New Zealand television. The story is the 14th instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

The story is scheduled in New Zealand at 3:25pm and in Australia at 3:30pm . New Zealand has an additional screening on Monday 15th April at 3:20am.

Genesis of the Daleks was first broadcast in Australia in 1977. New Zealand viewers didn't get to see the story for another decade - it was first screened by TVNZ in 1987.

UKTV is showing stories throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. Genesis of the Daleks is the second in a set of six stories featuring Tom Baker's Doctor broadcast during April.

The rest of the month's schedule includes: Pyramids of Mars and The Hand of Fear (both 21st April), and The Robots of Death and City of Death (both 28th April).

Up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections  for Australia and New Zealand.

Big Finish have released details on the latest adventures for the Doctor and his companions in April ...

Competition:

Thanks to Big Finish we have five copies of The Library of Alexandria for this month's competition. To be in with a chance to win, please answer the following question:
Send your answer to alexandria-competition@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Was that your Mummy?", along with your name, address, and where you saw the competition (the news website, twitter, facebook, etc.). Only one entry per postal address will be accepted. The competition is open worldwide, and the closing date is 30th April 2013.

Based on these final figures, Bells was the top rating drama of the day, the top-rating ABC program of the day and the fourth highest rating program of the day overall (this compares to it being the eighth highest rating program based on its overnight figures of 757,000 viewers). These ratings do not include regional viewers.

The writer of the fourth in the Puffin Books series of e-books has been revealed to be Philip Reeve, the award-winning author of Mortal Engines, Here Lies Arthur, and GOBLINS.


Philip Reeve was born in Brighton and worked in a book shop for many years before becoming a full-time illustrator and then turning to writing. His first novel, Mortal Engines, won the Nestlé Smarties Gold Award (2002), the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for both the Branford Boase Award and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. He has since won many more awards and accolades for his works including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 2006 and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for A Darkling Plain and the 2008 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Here Lies Arthur. His most recent titles are GOBLINS (2012) which was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and its sequel GOBLINS VS DWARVES (2013). He lives in Dartmoor, England with his wife and son, Sam. For further information and to explore the author’s own curious world visit his website.

Reeve commented:

A video of the author will be released on YouTube by BBC Worldwide later in the month, with the book itself coming out on the 23rd April. An extract from the book can be read via the Guardian.

Next week's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be Cold War, written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the UK on Saturday at the earlier time of 6:00pm.


This week continues to see the episode between the news and The Voice, with the competition from ITV once again in the form of You've Been Framed. BBC Two offers The Story of Are You Being Served? followed by an episode of the show, whilst Channel 4 has the news followed by Sarah Beeny's Selling Houses. Meanwhile, Channel 5 finishes the film Rocky III and then commences The Magnificent Seven Ride!



Internationally, Cold War will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET on the 13th April, and then on the 14th it can be seen in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. Meanwhile, New Zealand finally gets to see the new series launch with The Bells of Saint John this Thursday on PRIME at 7:30pm.

See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.

Final ratings data for the week ending 31st March 2013 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, gives Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John a final rating of 8.44 million viewers.

The final rating includes all those who record the programme and watch it within a week. It does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 390,000 watched. Nor does it include those watching on iPlayer where over 1 million people have accessed the episode so far.

The rating is the highest the series has received, excluding the Christmas Specials, since the premier of Series Six in April 2011, when The Impossible Astronaut had 8.86 million watching.

Doctor Who was the second highest rated show on BBC One for the week, only being beaten by one episode of EastEnders. It out-rated The Voice by nearly 1 million viewers, even though the two shows were level on overnight estimates. The only show to get a higher rating on ITV was Coronation Street where five episodes scored above Doctor Who. (ITV figures do not include HD viewers).

Full Ratings Data

The BBC have confirmed that actress Jemma Redgrave will return to Doctor Who for its 50th Anniversary Special, reprising her role as UNIT's Head of Scientific Research, Kate Stewart.

The announcement comes as filming resumes in London this week, with the crew spotted at The Tower of London this afternoon - the building was last seen in The Power Of Three as the exterior of UNIT Headquarters. Jenna-Louise Coleman was present at the location, along with actress Ingrid Oliver.