Figures showing the Live+7 performance of Doctor Who Series 8 are now available.

The LIve+7 figure is calculated by the BBC to try to get an accurate estimate of the total unique audience for an episode of a programme. Unlike official BARB figures the Live+7 uses data to include those who watched one of the broadcast repeats of the episode and those who watched the episode on iPlayer all within 7 days of the original transmission.

On average only 62% of the total audience of Doctor Who watch the programmme live or, as a recording, on the same day as broadcast, compared with an average of 86% across all BBC programmes. Around 24% timeshift the recording compared with an average of 6%, while 4% watch one of the repeats compared with an average of 6%. Around 9% watch on iPlayer, the BBC average being 2%.

Live +7 figures give a fairly consistent ratings across the series, with almost 10.8 million tuning in for the twelfth Doctor's debut. The average rating drops to around 8 million for the rest of the series with Death in Heaven finishing with around 8.8 million watching.

The finale of Series 8, Doctor Who: Death in Heaven finished as the 14th most watched programme on British Television for the week, according to figures from Barb.

The episode had an official 28.8% share of the total TV audience.

Top for the week was Strictly Come Dancing which had 10.52 million watching, just beating ITV's Downton Abbey, which had 10.44 million viewers.

Doctor Who was the 6th highest rated programme on BBC Television.

The BBC has released highlights from the special Q&A event hosted by Frank Skinner with guests Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Michelle Gomez and Steven Moffat, to mark the DVD and Blu-ray release of DoctorWho Series 8.



The Complete Eighth Series is out now in the UK and Australia - and will be released soon to the US and Canada.

The BBC has released figures on the performance of Series 8 of Doctor Who, the first series with Peter Capaldi taking up the role of The Doctor.

The series had an average consolidated audience of 7.4m viewers every week in the UK. This an increase of 39% on the initial overnight figures reported the day after broadcast. The 9.2m average audience that watched Deep Breath, Peter Capaldi's debut episode, is the highest figure for a non-special episode (Christmas/50th anniversary) since the opening episode of series 5 (Matt Smith’s debut) in 2010. These figures show how Doctor Who has consistently achieved big audiences across the last three series – series 7a/7b combined had an average consolidated audience of 7.4m, series 6a/6b attracted 7.5m and series 5 was viewed by 7.3m.

There has been over 18.9m requests to watch Doctor Who series 8 on BBC iPlayer - an average of 1.6m requests for each of the 12 episodes.

In the US, consolidated figures for the first 10 episodes have seen Series 8 experience a 23% uplift in total audience in Live+7 on Series 7. The series 8 premiere was the show’s highest-rated series premiere ever on BBC America, and is the first BBC Worldwide series ever to simultaneously hold the #1 slot in the Main TV Season Charts across all major Electronic Sell-through platforms in the US within 48 hours of episode 1’s release on August 24th 2014.

In Canada, on the Space channel, the first 10 episodes of Series 8 have seen a 22% uplift in consolidated audience size on Series 7.

Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer said:Danny Cohen, Director of BBC Television added:Doctor Who Extra, which offers viewers a behind the scenes look at making one of the nation's best loved dramas has had 1.3m BBC iPlayer requests and reached 2.4m people on BBC Red Button to date.

7.60 million watched the UK transmission of Death in Heaven according to consolidated figures available today, which include those recording the programme and watching within one week of transmission.

The final chart position should be available later in the week.

Doctor Who's replacement on Saturday nights, Atlantis, had an unofficial overnight ratings of 4.54 million viewers and was 5th for the day.

Doctor Who: Dark Water finished as the 15th most watched programme on British Television, according to figures from Barb.

The episode had an official 27.4% share of the total TV audience.

Top for the week was Strictly Come Dancing which had 10.93 million watching, once more beating ITV's Downton Abbey, which had 10.77 million viewers.

Doctor Who was the 7th highest rated programme on BBC Television.

Story updated to remove a double reference to Countryfile.

This story contains plot spoilers from the final episode of Series 8.


Steven Moffat has been talking about the current series of Doctor Who, at a special Royal Television Society event in London.

The showrunner was appearing at the Doctor Who: Anatomy of a hit event alongside his fellow executive producer Brian Minchin, producer Nikki Wilson, director of Deep Breath Ben Wheatley and special effects producer Rob Mayor, to discuss how the twelfth Doctor emerged from script to screen.

Moffat said how the casting of Peter Capaldi had been inevitable as soon as the name was mentioned. We announced the actor to a nation who already knew.. He agreed that the casting of an older Doctor may have unsettled the audience that had grown up with David Tennant and Matt Smith in the role. We definitely ruffled their feathers by changing the actors. Shows don't die when they change, they die when they are comfortable. If you're watching it saying I'm appalled! Well then, you're still watching it!

He said casting for Danny Pink had been very difficult because all the actors who auditioned had been so good. He said making Doctor Who is always difficult because each story is so different. The terrifying thing is you discover at the start of every new show that you've learnt nothing in making Doctor Who.

Steven Moffat said he felt no guilt about lying about the return of the Master at an event for the launch of Deep Breath. It would have ruined the surprise. Because the reveal was filmed outside St Paul's Cathedral in London the actors mimed their lines and recorded the dialog later. To try to keep the secret the team even went to the trouble of recoding as scene where Missy identifies herself as a Random Access Neural Interface, hoping fans would pick up on the acronym and spread the word that the Rani was returning. Whenever I arrange skullduggery, no-one ever notices.

Moffat revealed he has tried the misdirection trick before, with similar success. When we did Day of the Doctor, we went to the trouble of having John Hurt’s character referred to as Omega throughout. Is nobody stealing scripts these days?

Moffat was asked about the killing of Osgood in the final episode, defending it as necessary. I was aware that the Master as a character gets cuddly very fast. If we're going to bring her back, she's got to kill someone in a. horrible way. Otherwise she becomes a slightly more naughty Doctor

Director Ben Wheatley said he was disappointed by the leaking of unfinished early episodes from Series 8 onto the internet as some fans first view of the new Doctor would be in an unfinished episode. The leaked version of Deep Breath was in Black and White. Steven Moffat admited, as a fan, he would have looked. I would have had to go and look. It would have ruined it for myself, but it was a new Doctor..

The showrunner was asked about the audience reaction to Series eight, in particular perceived falling ratings. The figures are the same - they're just the same, he said. If by 'ratings', you mean the number of people who watch the show... they are the same. The number of people who watch on Doctor Who on iPlayer has trebled. The way people watch it has changed but viewing figures have remained the same.. Brian Minchin also pointed out how well the show is doing globally now, for example the audience watching on BBC America is up 30 percent since Capaldi took over the role of the Doctor.

The team are now working on preparation for Series Nine, with Steven Moffat currently writing episode One. The list of writers has been decided but the details are secret for now.

A full set of pictures from the event is on the RTS Facebook page

German DVD distributer Polyband announced on their Facebook page that they are postponing the release of the Series 8 boxed set from November 2014 to late February 2015.

Polyband originally planned to include the Christmas Special The Time of the Doctor on the Series 8 set. Due to unforeseen problems with the German dub of Series 8, they are now going to release the Special on its own in December.

The German Series 8 set will include all the UK special features. Additionally, the cinema prequel to Deep Breath and the yet-to-be-broadcast Christmas Special of 2014 will also be included, according to a statement by Polyband on Facebook.

Doctor Who: Die Zeit des Doktors (Time of the Doctor) will be released on 22nd December 2014 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon Germany on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Doctor Who Death in Heaven had an Audience Appreciation Index or AI score of 83.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes. The episode scored highest with those aged 35-54 and lowest with those aged 16-34. It was enjoyed slightly more by female viewers.

On Sunday, three programmes scored higher than Doctor Who, pushing the show into 23rd place for the week. Final figures and chart position will be released next week.

The Sunday repeat of Death in Heaven on BBC Three had an overnight estimate of 0.20 million viewers, a 0.8% share of the audience.

Death in Heaven averaged an excellent 995,000 national viewers in Australia (these figures include the five major capital cities and regional and rural viewers). It was the highest rating drama of the day and the seventh highest rating program of the day overall. Excluding regional and rural viewers, this story averaged 620,000 viewers in the five major Australian capital cities and was also the highest rating drama of the day and the eighth highest rating program of the day overall in the big cities. These ratings do not include time shifted viewers.