Rosa, the third episode of Series Eleven of Doctor Who, got 6.39m viewers on BBC One. This represented as 29.6% share of the audience.
Doctor Who episode Rosa faced a tough viewing figures environment with Channel 4 F1’s coverage of Formula 1 racing as competition. In fact all regular TV programming was down across the board. At its peak, the F1 race took 5.5m viewers out of normal circulation for the crucial United States Grand Prix. As a result over on ITV the Bradley Walsh fronted The Celebrity Chase was cut down to 3.43m. Meanwhile even ratings mainstay The X-Factor only managed a reduced 4.02m.
Over on BBC One, Doctor Who shed 710k viewers from The Ghost Monument to achieve 6.39m in overnights. However, that still leaves Doctor Who set to finish in the Top Ten for the week. This would be the first time that all three episodes at the beginning of a series got into the Top Ten since 2014’s Series Eight.
Time-shifting will be taken into account over the next week. And viewers who recorded Rosa for later viewing, or who watched on catch-up services will be included. At than point a Top Five placing for the third week in a row will be well within reach.
‘#DoctorWho’ and ‘#RosaParks’ continued to be top trending topics on Twitter in the UK until after midnight. And with the vast majority of tweets praising the Malorie Blackman and Christ Chibnall episode highly, time-shifting is likely to particularly strong this week. The Ghost Monument has seen approximately 1.5m viewers added to its original number of the past week (final 7+ figures are still pending) so a similar performance for Rosa would see it finish in and about the 8m mark.
Rosa’s 6.39m overnight represents a continued trend of ratings dominance for Doctor Who
To place in perspective, while down on the first two weeks of Series Eleven (as always happens and is expected) it represents a climb of 69.9% on the 3.76m achieved by Thin Ice, last year’s equivalent episode. Indeed Rosa’s overnight figures are higher than any episode in Series Ten. And, more than that, it’s higher than the consolidated 7+ figures for any Series Ten episode except The Pilot.
Had The Woman Who Fell to Earth achieved Rosa’s 6.39m in overnights, it would have been a perfectly respectable success. For the third episode ‘historical’ slot it represents the continuation of Doctor Who’s current trend of ratings dominance.
The Doctor Who adventure continues…
Doctor Who continues this Sunday at 6.55pm GMT on BBC One and at 8pm EST on BBC America with Arachnids in the UK by Chris Chibnall. Series 11 stars Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), and Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair). Arachnids in the UK guest stars Chris Noth, Shobna Gulati, Tanya Fear and is directed by Sallie Aprahamian.
“Something’s happening with the spiders in this city.” The Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan find their way back to Yorkshire – and Yaz’s family. Only something is stirring amidst the eight-legged arachnid population of Sheffield.
The first four episodes of Series Eleven, plus the ten previous seasons, are all available on iPlayer’s Doctor Who page.
[…] its huge viewing figures in the US, UK and globally, the new Doctor Who series provides an unexpected boost for pro-diversity […]
Rosa Parks triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott because black people were not prepared to stand for “Jim Crow” Redneck apartheid anymore NOT due to the interactions of two people in a personal dispute at a specific moment. The emphasis on it being a specific driver was ridiculous. He was enforcing the racist law that REQUIRED him to discriminate and another driver would have done the same. To reduce the whole thing to a personal level was a betrayal. If she had not done this someone else would – its called “temporal inertia”. This made the entire episode pointless and borderline offensive to the real struggle. Martin Luther King and some guys were in her front room the day before – so was it planned – or was it spontaneous? We are are not told.
Besides – if Krassko had a temporal displacement weapon – why didn’t he just use it on Rosa Parks (or the driver – or the whole bus)?