Doctor Who showrunner doesn’t care ratings are low for one key reason

Russell T Davies has acknowledged the slightly underwhelming ratings for Doctor Who Season 14, but he says there’s another metric that makes up for it.

Doctor Who Season 14’s eight-episode run has consisted of ups and downs, both in quality and viewership. The best new Doctor Who episodes are credited with revitalizing the show and bringing it into a new, more expressive era. On the other hand, there are a few that didn’t quite live up to expectations.

But while the quality has dipped in and out (check out our ‘Rogue’ review for thoughts on the newest episode), the ratings have ebbed between the high and low range in the two million mark on release day. The premiere episode, ‘Space Babies’, brought in 2.6 million viewers on the night it dropped, while the latest, ‘Rogue’, had 2.11 million.

While the overall ratings for the newest season might not be where Davies and co. would have liked them to be, the showrunner isn’t too fussed. Turns out, there’s another, more important metric that he was aiming to hit, and they’ve done so quite successfully: the age range of viewers.

“I’m very proud of it!” he told Radio Times [via Doctor Who TV]. “You know, they might not be the ratings we’d love. We always want higher. But they are building over the 28-day period. Episode 1, Space Babies, is already up to 5.6 million and counting. So it is getting there.”

For Davies, the ultimate goal was to bring in an audience of under-30s. The hardest bracket to get in front of screens, bringing in a younger crowd for a 61-year-old sci-fi show isn’t an easy task. But Davies is quite happy with the numbers they’ve managed to pull in.

“I was brought back in to bring in a youthful audience,” he explained. “That’s been massively successful. The audience no one ever gets is the under-30s. They just don’t watch television anymore. But those figures are astronomic for Doctor Who, it’s their top program in that bracket.

“I never thought it was possible, to be honest. But according to the people who juggle the numbers, all targets have been reached and exceeded. The BBC are running around like mad things.”

One of the reasons for dipping viewership might be due to the Season 14 release schedule. In order to have a simultaneous premiere for international and UK audiences, the new episodes have been premiering on BBC iPlayer at midnight — a method that initially received some backlash from UK viewers.

But Davies defended the move, arguing that viewers having a choice of flexible watching was an integral aspect.

The final episodes of Doctor Who Season 14 will be released on June 15 and 22 in the UK. For more, check out all of Doctor Who Season 14’s biggest theories. Or, see all the Doctor Who Season 14 villains explained.

Don’t forget to check out our list of all the best new TV shows to watch this month!