Overnight ratings for The Hungry Earth
The sun was shining across the UK throughout yesterday, which unfortunately resulted in Doctor Who falling to its lowest overnight figure yet, as 4.5million tuned in for The Hungry Earth.
With 4.24million watching on BBC1, and an additional 0.30million in HD, Episode 8 had a 32.2% share of the total audience. It’s not all bad news though, as it’s worth nothing there were only 13million watching TV overall, so the figure is still fairly impressive when that is taken into account!
Doctor Who was the 5th most watched programme of the day, behind The National Lottery, Casualty and the two episodes of Over the Rainbow. Meanwhile, Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 0.28million on BBC3. Final figures will be released soon.
Did you enjoy The Hungry Earth? Have your say in our Episode 8 discussion.
taking into consideration that it was over the rainbow final, the weather was astonishing, and the silly time slot, these figures aren’t that worrying
i thought it was one of the best episodes of series 5 
Considering the early time slot the show has and the ultra-hot weather, it’s pretty understandable that a large amount of people weren’t perched in front of their tv sets as this episode went out; especially kids.
Oh S**t!!! These aren’t great ratings, I was expecting this due to the AMAZING weather, over the rainbow final, etc. Official rating will probs be about 6 million and with the 7:00pm timeslot back next weeks will be better. But it was a FANTASTIC episode.
And I missed half of it because the goddamn sun nearly put me in hospital again. Not everyone enjoys summer weather…
Well, obviously it has nothing to do with the time slot otherwise why would The Vampires of Venice have achieved higher ratings at an earlier time? The Sun was really the only problem this week but, at this rate, next week’s ratings will probably be abysmal…
@TE
The time slot plays a factor, in conjunction with the weather. It’s on early, when the hot, hot sun is still in full effect, so people are out and about longer; especially kids, out playing and making the most of the heat. If it had been on later in the evening, more people would have been back inside. There’s not much that you can do though, but obviously the BBC will know exactly why figures are down across the board.
I saw it was a Chibnall and didn’t hurry home. I imagine the other 4 million did the same.
hm….. not great…. but i doubt it will cause bbc to go to drastic measures….. if it was itv *shudder* i don’t like to think about it………
stupid sun…. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO HOT????
@dani They have cancelled it with bigger audiences!
As fr your “stupid sun”, what a fantastic country we are, people are always complaining about the weather!!!
Well best not confuse these figures with final figures, when it was cancelled the final viewing figures were around this number (no recorders, no iplayer, no BBC3), all of the repeat viewings do matter, but no, these aren’t good numbers. The scheduling needs to be fixed, I’ve missed half the episodes this season as a result.
If you mean the hiatus then… well yes, they did that at a time when the show was achieving the kind of viewing figures the new series has always gotten; the BBC aren’t a buisness and it’s perfectly possible (sadly) for one man with a grudge to bury it.