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Doctor Who wins ratings battle
28 March

Nine years since the Paul McGann TV movie and sixteen years since the last regular season, Doctor Who returned to BBC One with a bang.

Overnight figures give the show an average of 9.9 million viewers and a 43.2% of all viewers. The episode peaked at 10.5 million viewers, or 44.3% of the audience.

The Doctor's return saw the show up against Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV1, which averaged 7.2 million and a peak of 8.5 million.

An ITV spokesman said, "The audience for Ant and Dec was up on the show last Easter Sunday, which got 7.1 million viewers, so we have no complaints." However, this nice piece of ITV spin ignores the fact that Saturday's audience was down on the previous week's.

Doctor Who's audience was significantly higher than the preceeding Strictly Dance Fever, which averaged 4.9 million, peaking at 6.3 million. Over on ITV1, the final of Stars in Their Eyes pulled in 5 million, peaking at 5.6 million.

Unfortunately a technical problem saw the sound from studio TC8 briefly play over Doctor Who on a couple of occasions, with a round of applause and Strictly Dance Fever host Graham Norton asking where to stand.

"There was a technical problem which was resolved as quickly as possible," a BBC spokesperson said. "We apologise if it affected viewers' enjoyment of Doctor Who."