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Aliens of London ratings
20 April

Doctor Who's fourth episdode, Aliens of London, saw the series' ratings slip to the lowest of the season so far.

Overnight figures give the episode a 6.98 million audience (33.9%), against the 7.12 million who watched Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (35.5%). This was the first time that Who had lost the ratings battle, although these are still only preliminary figures.

Although this was the season finale of the ITV1 series, it's unlikely that this had much effect on the audience. Doctor Who's audience seems to have suffered from the poor lead-in audience delivered by Strictly Dance Fever, as Aliens of London's audience peaked at 7.8 million from 7.30-7.45pm. However, with the Graham Norton fronted show scheduled to run for the same 13 weeks as Doctor Who, this could prove to be a recurring problem as the summer approaches.

With many fans (including myself) citing the episode as easily the weakest of the season so far, it will be interesting to see what the ratings for the second half of the story, World War III, are before the inevitable publicity blitz for the following week's episode, Dalek...