Doctor Who Ratings Continue To Decline With Episode 3 Orphan 55
John F. Trent
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BBC America’s Doctor Who ratings continued to decline with the release of Episode 3 “Orphan 55.”
TV Series Finale reports Doctor Who Episode 3 “Orphan 55” had an abysmal .10 rating with total viewers only reaching 468,000.
This is more than a 20% decline from Episode 2, Spyfall: Part Two.
Spyfall: Part Two had a .15 rating and only 589,000 total viewers. That was a more than 25% decline from the premiere which had a .19 rating and 790,000 total viewers.
In the United Kingdom, Doctor Who News reports the “Orphan 55” episode was watched by 4.19 million viewers. Radio Times previously reported Spyfall: Part Two had UK viewership at 4.6 million. This is nearly a 10% decline in viewership. Not as substantial as the American audience with BBC America, but still a significant drop off.
Related: Report: Doctor Who’s Season 12 Premiere Viewership Nosedives
However, Doctor Who News does note that viewership could increase when final figures are released on January 20th. They note those figures “will include those who recorded the programme and watched it later.”
Even with the numbers being much higher, it’s still a significant drop off from the previous season. The 2019 New Year’s Day special “Resolution” saw UK viewership at 7.13 million. And the season finale for Doctor Who Season 11 “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” saw 6.65 million people tune in.
The ratings and viewership numbers come after Doctor Who boss Chris Chibnall spoke with Doctor Who Magazine and detailed that he doesn’t look at feedback on the show.
As reported by Radio Times, Chibnall told Doctor Who Magazine, “I am not on social media, I don’t read press coverage and I don’t read reviews.”
Chibnall added, “The one thing you can say about every series of Doctor Who that’s ever been made is that some people liked it, some people didn’t. That will be true forever.”
He continued, ““What you have to do is make the show you believe in, hope that it connects, then go home. If we allow other things in then we’re not making our vision.”
Chibnall concluded, “In terms of external opinions, it’s not a democracy. We make the show we want to make.”
Related: Rumor: Doctor Who Season 12 to Reveal Doctor’s Original Gender
Well, it definitely appears he’s making the show he wants to make, it’s just a show that a lot of people don’t want to watch and appear to be tuning out of on a weekly basis.
Nevertheless, Chibnall says, “I love this job, I really enjoy it, and I know what I want to do with it.”
He added, “One thing I’ve learned about showrunning down the years is that you can only control what you can control. There are lots of things you can’t control, so try not to worry about them.”
Doctor Who Episode 4 “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror will premiere in the UK at 7:10 PM on January 19th. It arrived on BBC America in the United States at 8 ET.
Have you been watching Doctor Who? What do you make of this twelfth season? What do you think these declining viewership numbers indicate? What do you make of Chris Chibnall’s comments about not looking at external feedback on the show?
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