The second episode of Doctor Who’s 15th season suffered a fairly substantial drop in ratings – with just 1.58 million viewers tuning in to watch Lux on BBC One last night (Saturday 19th April).
That’s down from the 2 million who watched last week’s season premiere The Robot Revolution and marks the lowest overnight viewership ratings in the show’s history, the first time ever that the figures have dipped below 2 million.
Of course, it’s worth noting that these figures don’t tell the whole story, given the figure doesn’t take into account anyone who watched the episode on BBC iPlayer, where it debuted at 8am on Saturday prior to its BBC One broadcast.
The consolidated ratings, which include iPlayer, devices and catch-up, will be released at a later date.
Yeah, frankly I think this says more about broadcast television than about Doctor Who. It was in fourth place for the day, with News at Ten, Casualty, and Blankety Blank above it - I think it’s rather clear what the demographics are for broadcast TV.
I like this chart for comparing the current series’ performance to past ones, because it relies on seeing it against the wider television landscape rather than just as abstract numbers. Doctor Who may be getting lower over-the-air ratings, but everything is - its been pretty impressively stable.
So these numbers (in the attached chart) are broadcast viewing positions — for BBC1 on the day of broadcast, or a wider comparison? Is this from a source that keeps it updated with new chart positions?