The Doctor Who viewing figures juggernaut continues! As the premiere adds millions in time-shifts, Ghost Monument gets the strongest overnights for a second episode in years
The overnight viewing figures for the latest episode of Doctor Who, The Ghost Monument, are now available. Jodie Whittaker’s second episode of the season received an audience of 7.1m for BBC One. This represents 33.4% of viewers. This makes it the third most watched television program of the week. Only the weekend’s two editions of Strictly Come Dancing achieved higher viewing figures. However, it’s expected that due to the majority of the Strictly audience watching live, Ghost Monument should overtake the Strictly Results show once time shifting is taken into account in the coming week. It beat ITV’s best offering of the week, the Wednesday edition of Coronation Street, by some 400,000 viewers.
While this is slightly down on last week’s viewing figures, the drop is actually substantially less than expected. (For context, 2006’s Tooth and Claw starring David Tennant is the only time that a second episode has achieved higher ratings than the first). It’s anticipated that The Ghost Monument will ultimately finish as one of the highest rated second episodes ever. It will likely approach or perhaps even pass current leaders Tooth and Claw and The Fires of Pompeii.
Another positive sign in The Ghost Monument’s viewing patterns is that audiences increased as the episode went on. This suggests almost all those who tuned in at the start of the episode liked what they saw and bodes well for next week’s Rosa.
The Woman Who Fell to Earth Continues Its Journey Up the Doctor Who Charts
Meanwhile, we now have the numbers for premiere episode The Woman Who Fell to Earth. The first episode of the new era has added an additional 2.3 million viewers from people watching the episode on catch-up for a first week totalling viewing figure of 10.5m. For context, the seven day number for the first episode of the runaway hit Bodyguard was 10.4m. It’s currently places The Woman Who Fell to Earth as the most watched episode since 2013’s The Time of the Doctor (11.1m) and the highest debut for a new Doctor since Christopher Eccleston in Rose (10.8m). However, with another three weeks, until the final consolidated ratings are available, Whittaker’s debut may yet still climb higher.
And as if all that weren’t enough, when viewings on smartphones, tablets and laptops are included the figure reaches a staggering 10.9m! Though that is more difficult to directly compare to earlier seasons.
All in all, it would appear that the change to a Sunday evening slot has been vindicated as officially a good move. While suggesting the creative teams led by Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker are proving a hit with viewers. Although the Bradley Walsh factor can’t be dismissed either – in a fun twist, ITV scheduled a Celebrity Special of The Chase directly opposite Doctor Who this week and the result was both shows getting very strong audiences, with the Walsh fronted game show getting 4.9m viewers in its own right.
The adventure continues…
Doctor Who continues on BBC One at 6.55pm this Sunday with Rosa by Malorie Blackman. Series 11 stars Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), and Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair). Rosa guest stars Vinette Robinson as Rosa Parks and Josh Bowman as Krasko.
“If she can live here her whole life, a couple of hours ain’t gonna kill me. They ain’t gonna kill me, right?” Montgomery, Alabama. 1955. The Doctor and her friends find themselves in the Deep South of America. As they encounter a seamstress by the name of Rosa Parks, they begin to wonder: is someone attempting to change history?
