We Shouldn’t Worry About The Husbands of River Song Overnight Figures

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The overnight viewing figures for The Husbands of River Song have been announced – and they’re a bit disappointing. But viewed in context, it’s not all bad.

The Doctor Who Christmas special attracted 5.77 million, and though this will obviously increase (probably quite dramatically) when final figures are collated, you can’t help but feel a little deflated. Audience figures for Series 9 were lacklustre, but Christmas always sees a rise. Indeed, the 5.77 million is greater than every overnight stat for Series 9 (itself a depressing fact) – but only just.

2007’s Voyage of the Damned remains the most watched episode of NuWho with 13.31 million, beating the UK figures for even The Day of the Doctor (12.8 million, not counting worldwide watchers and cinema takings).

The first modern Christmas special, 2005’s The Christmas Invasion had peak overnights of 9.8million and an average of 9.4; however, final viewing figures were 9.84 million… and this shows us a lot. Consumption of television has changed greatly, and we need to remember that.

Because The Husbands of River Song didn’t do too impressively, but neither did Christmas Day viewing as a whole.

Doctor Who was the seventh most-watched show of the day according to unofficial viewing figures, with 29.4% share of the audience, just beating EastEnders‘ 5.7 million.

Sitting in the top spot is Downton Abbey:The Finale, the last episode of the show which has run since 2010, claiming 6.9 million – which isn’t a considerable number really. It was followed by BBCOne’s highest-rating entry, Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special (6.5m), then Mrs. Brown’s Boys Christmas Special, and Stick Man, both of which had 6.4m. And in fifth place, 5.9 million watched Coronation Street on ITV1.

Ratings across TV were down on last year – and that was even down on 2013. The Time of the Doctor reached 8.3 million, while 2014’s Last Christmas has overnights of 6.3m. This increased to 8.28m for final figures.

Last Christmas’ most-watched, according to overnights, was Mrs. Brown’s Boys which got 7.6m.

As you can see, overnights have decreased across the board, but Doctor Who‘s timeshift audience is typically greater than other programmes.

So no, we shouldn’t worry too much. Apart from for television in general. After a few stumbles, Doctor Who will be just fine.

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