The BBC have announced a deal with Disney Branded Television to provide Doctor Who on its streaming platform Disney+ internationally, including a new (but familiar looking!) logo for the series.

Under a shared creative vision, the two organisations will deliver the series using Disney+ as the exclusive home for new seasons outside the UK and Ireland. The announcement was made by the next Doctor Ncuti Gatwa during an appearance on American breakfast show Live with Kelly and Ryan this morning.

The new episodes will premiere on the BBC and Disney+ beginning in late 2023 for fans all over the world.

 

The show is produced in Wales by Bad Wolf with BBC Studios Production. Showrunner Russell T Davies said

Charlotte Moore, BBC's Chief Content Officer said:

Alisa Bowen, President of Disney+ said:

Ayo Davis, President of Disney Branded Television said:

Rebecca Glashow, CEO, Global Distribution, BBC Studios says:

Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, Executive Producers and Co-founders, Bad Wolf, said:

 

Doctor Who - Legend Of The Sea Devils, had an official 7-day rating of 3.47 million viewers.

The figure includes all those who watched the episode within 1 week of transmission. The figure is a substantial increase over the initial overnight figure and was enough to make Doctor Who the highest-rated programme on BBC Television for the day.

Overall Doctor Who was the third most-watched programme on British Television for the day, with ITV's drama The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe taking top place.

Doctor Who was the 24th most-watched programme for the week.

The rise from the overnight figure was enough to prevent The Legend of the Sea Devils becoming the lowest-rated episode in Doctor Who history.  That accolade is still held by episode one of the 1989 story Battlefield with 3.1 million watching.  It does however mean that the Sea Devil episode is the lowest-rated story since the series returned in 2005.

Doctor Who will return for one more story in 2022, a climactic regeneration story shown to mark the BBC's 100th birthday, before a new production team, headed up by Russell T Davies, takes over for series 14. 

Doctor Who will return to screens worldwide on Sunday 17th April with The Legend of the Sea Devils. 

The story is the second in a trio of Doctor Who specials airing in 2022

UK viewers can catch the episode on BBC One or the BBC iPlayer, while in the USA the episode will screen on BBC America. 

Other worldwide broadcasts follow shortly afterward.

For details check This Week in Doctor Who

 

In a swashbuckling special adventure, the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Yaz (Mandip Gill), and Dan (John Bishop) come face to fin with one the Sea Devils, first seen in the 1972 Third Doctor story. 

 

The final Doctor Who episode starring Jodie Whittaker will be screened in the Autumn as part of the celebrations making 100  years of the BBC. 

 

Doctor Who The Vanquishers was watched by 3.58 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures. This is a slight drop from episode 5's 3.82 million

It was the day's fifth most-watched programme of the day.

The seven-day consolidated figure, which includes all those who watch the episode within one week. for Episode Five: Survivors of the Flux was 4.72 million. 

Doctor Who was the 9th most-watched programme on BBC Television for the week and the 25th most-watched on all British television for the week. 

As part of this month's learning resouces from the BBC, CBBC have broadcast a series on classic music for schools over the past week: Ten Pieces have focussed on a number of works based around a theme, and Friday's episode, Back in Time, included a section on the groundbreaking work of Delia Derbyshire in creating the Doctor Who theme, presented by currrent series composer Segun Akinola.

The feature can be viewed via the Ten Pieces Orchestral Films page, and the full programme is currently available to watch on the BBC iPlayer until 27th June, with the Doctor Who theme segment starting from about six minutes.

Supporting material is available from the BBC Teach site, which includes downloadable scores for music showcased within the programmes. For Derbyshire, the Doctor Who theme tune has been published for performance by schools, arranged by Iain Farrington, and features arrangements for beginners, intermediate and grade 4/5 musicians.

 

(The site also features an item on Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, introduced by Christopher Eccleston)

 

The Arena docudrama, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes, remains available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for the next eleven months. Its director, Caroline Catz, can be heard discussing Derbyshire on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone from BBC Radio 6, and her BBC Radio 4 Great Lives programme on the composer ifrom January is still available to listen to on BBC Sounds. 

 

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Also launched recently is a new film, Sisters with Transistors, described as "the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today." The documentary looks at the careers of notable visionaries, including Delia Derbyshire and one of the founding figures of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram.

The film was disussed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in April, and works from both composers can still be heard in the recentl repeat of the 2018 BBC Prom Pioneers of Sound.

Sisters with Transistors - Trailer

Doctor Who - Revolution of the Daleks had an overnight viewing audience of 4.69 million viewers.

The figure made Doctor Who the most-watched programme on BBC One for New Year's Day. Doctor Who had a 21.1% share of the total TV audience.

Top overall was ITV's Evening News with 5.5 million viewers while Coronation Street came second with 5.0 million watching. Against The Doctor, Emmerdale had 4.6 million watching.

On BBC One Eastenders had 3.3 million while the comedy Mrs Brown's Boys had 3.7 million viewers. 

Final official figures should be available next week.

 

With this year's New Year special making its debut later today, viewers in the UK will be able to watch the programme in 4K resolution and high dynamic range (HDR) colour via iPlayer.

When Revolution of the Daleks is broadcast, viewers will be prompted to switch to the higher quality streamed version by pressing the red button.

To take advantage of the facility, households will need a compatible TV and a relatively fast internet connection. The BBC recommends a minimum of 24 megabits per second (Mbps) connection.

By contrast, regular 1080p high definition (HD) programmes require a 6.3Mbps connection and standard definition (SD) content 1.1Mbps.

Ultra-High Definition (UHD) - the other name given to 4K on TVs - delivers four times as many pixels as HD video. The benefits are that images can appear sharper and more detailed, although this is not always apparent if the screen is not large enough or viewers are sitting too far away.

HDR produces pictures that typically appear to be more vivid and colourful. It takes advantage of the fact screens can go brighter and/or darker than they used to be able to, providing a greater dynamic range.

As a result, the shadows of an image can be made less murky while the highlights - including sparks from special effects - can have more impact.

The BBC first publicly tested 4K HDR on iPlayer in 2016 when it offered four minutes from its Planet Earth II series. It has subsequently offered a limited range of full-length programmes including Dynasties; His Dark Materials; and Dracula, as well as sport including Wimbledon and Fifa World Cup 2018 matches.

Doctor Who has been broadcast in many different formats during its 57-year history.  The first episode being broadcast in the 405-line monochrome analogue format. The definition improved in 1967 when the 625 line format was used to record The Enemy of the World. Colour arrived in 1970 with Spearhead from Space.

By the time the series returned in 2005 the series was recorded digitally rather than on analogue tape.  The programme was first made available on iPlayer in 2007 with the Christmas special Voyage of the Damned. The first episode available in HD was Planet of the Dead, the 2009 Easter special.

Previous episodes have been made available in 4K on Blu--ray but Revolution of the Daleks is the first to be made available in this format on the iPlayer on the day of transmission,

BBC Studios have announced the launch of their high definition channel BBC Prime in Turkey via Türk Telekom’s Tivibu platform from 27th May, with Doctor Who featuring prominently on the new service:


Natasha Hussain, Senior Vice President for MENA at BBC Studios, said:
Türk Telekom TV/OTT Content and Product Director, Ziyad Varol, stated:

Doctor Who kicks off on the channel with a complete run of Peter Capaldi's last series during the afternoon/evening, leading up to the premiere of The Woman Who Fell To Earth. The channel then continues to show Series 11 alongside the rest of the Doctor's high definition adventures over the following weeks (which includes the upscaled special The Next Doctor). You can catch up on the BBC First schedule via This Week in Doctor Who.

Doctor Who has been available in Turkey in standard definition for a number of years via BBC Entertainment Europe (currently broadcasting Series 10).

The next shared Doctor Who viewing organised by Doctor Who Magazine's Emily Cook takes place this evening (UK):


As with previous discussions, author Neil Gaiman will be giving insights on his episode, this time joined by director Richard Clark and the voice of House, Michael Sheen.

Neil Gaiman also hinted on Twitter:




Don't forget that there is another shared viewing of Silver Nemesis with Sophie Aldred at 6:00pm BST as part of online Time Space Visualiser convention taking place this afternoon on YouTube.

The recent global DoctorWhoLockdown initiative organised by Doctor Who Magazine's Emily Cook was reported by BBC News in the lead-up to last night's The Eleventh Hour - you can watch the report via the DoctorWhoLockdown YouTube channel.

This is the second time the initiative has been reported on, with entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba reporting on the simulcast viewing of Rose back on its anniversary on the 26th March (online version).



The next planned DoctorWhoLockdown is for The Doctor's Wife on Saturday 11th April from 8:00pm BST.