Cliff Notes – Doctor Who’s ‘risky’ gamble paid off in the best way possible
- Doctor Who’s latest episode, a tribute to the Eurovision Song Contest, aired simultaneously with the live event, showcasing strategic scheduling by Russell T Davies.
- The episode, titled The Interstellar Song Contest, attracted 3.75 million viewers, making it the highest viewed of the season, excluding the Christmas Special.
- Despite initial concerns over potential scheduling conflicts with live events, the episode’s marketing strategy successfully boosted audience numbers and engagement.
Doctor Who’s ‘risky’ gamble paid off in the best way possible
Doctor Who took a big gamble earlier this month. Doctor Who is no stranger to risk. After all the tenacious Time Lord has spent the last six decades battling Daleks, Cybermen, and other terrors beyond our imagination.
Yet the Doctor, or Doctor Who boss Russell T Davies to be more specific, has just pulled off an incredibly risky gamble.
While plotting this year’s series, Russell rather cleverly devised an episode that was essentially a love letter to the Eurovision Song Contest… or The Interstellar Song Contest, as the episode was called
Even better, the 62-year-old pulled off a piece of scheduling wizardry that ensured the episode would air on BBC1 on the same day as the Song Contest. It was a marketing coup and one that earned the episode a lot of publicity.
To make a sweet situation even sweeter, the FA Cup final was due to be shown before Doctor Who, offering the sci-fi series an impressive audience lead-in.
In theory, then, The Interstellar Song Contest was set up for success, but here’s where the risk comes in. Scheduling the episode around two live TV events had the potential to massively backfire.
The episode is the highest viewed of the season , 3,754,000 have watched the Doctor Who and Eurovision crossover so far.
If the FA Cup went to extra time or penalties, then Doctor Who would have to move to a later timeslot, but because Eurovision is also live, it couldn’t be pushed later.
That meant Doctor’s latest adventure was at risk of being bumped from the schedule entirely, a possibility that terrified fans online as at best it would have undone all Russell’s carefully laid publicity plans and at worst thrown off later episodes of Doctor Who which have all been building to a cataclysmic event happening on May 24.
Thankfully, the worst didn’t come to pass. In fact, it seems like Russell’s bet that this would get the show more attention has paid off splendidly.
Thanks Eurovision!
According to BARB – an organisation dedicated to measuring television ratings in the United Kingdom – The Interstellar Song Contest has been watched by 3,754,000 so far, including streaming.
That makes it the most viewed episode of the season, not including the Christmas Special, and it was the ninth most watched show the week of May 12 to May 18.
Of course, not everyone will have been watching the show right before Eurovision, but it’s clear that the effort that went into promoting this episode has had a positive effect on audience numbers.
Time will tell if the series can keep up these viewing figures. Ncuti Gatwa’s second series has been a hit with fans and critics, who’ve praised the writing and performances, but sadly, this has failed to pull in viewers.
The episode Lux has the ignominy of being the lowest viewed episode since the show’s revival in 2005, and there has been endless press speculation that the show may be running out of road.
Last we heard, the BBC hit back at claims that Ncuti had been axed from the show, but with rumours swirling of a possible regeneration during Sunday’s episode, The Reality War, it’s likely that the grand finale will attract a lot of attention, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
Doctor Who: The Reality War will air on May 31 at 6:50pm on BBC1