Oh Canada, you are getting more Doctor Who! Bell Media has signed a deal with the BBC to stream Doctor Who in Canada. All new series episodes will be broadcast on Space, a cable channel in Canada. All older series will be available on CraveTV, a streaming service akin to Netflix.
Canadian subscribers to CraveTV will be able to stream series 9 starting summer 2016, and will have access to season 1-8 by the end of the year. Series 10 will stream on Crave as soon as the season finishes its regular season run on Space.
Just as more American viewers have been watching Doctor Who, viewers in Canada have also been watching the show in droves. Series 9 averaged 697,000 viewers for the Doctor Who, which airs at 9 PM on Saturdays on Space. The Christmas special, “The Husbands of River Song,” which was universally acclaimed, garnered 856,000 viewers. The show aired on Christmas at 9 pm and was the highest rated show on Christmas Day among key demographics such as the 25-54 and the 18-49 age groups. These younger viewers are critical to the show’s lasting success.
According to Matt Forde, who is BBC Worldwide North America exec VP of content production, sales and distribution..
Doctor Who is BBC Worldwide’s strongest show in Canada. The show’s dominant numbers bear this assessment out, and viewers will have a chance to catch up on older episodes as they wait for series 10 to air in 2017.
While Tracey Peace, Bell Media Senior VP, had this gem to say about the show:
For us ‘Doctor Who’ really embodies the core values that drive our Space channel — it’s epic, it’s imaginative, it’s addictive. While it clearly has a highly engaged, dedicated audience, we’ve also seen it grow.” CraveTV has always streamed the older series of Doctor who, and this deal now makes the relationship an exclusive partnership.
Space TV is a specialty cable channel, specialising in science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal shows; in other words, all the shows a typical Whovian would enjoy. CraveTV is a video on demand service owned by Bell Media, which has more than 10,000 hours of video available, including exclusive rights to HBO and Showtime.
