Doctor Who “The Waters Of Mars” was watched by 9.1 million viewers according to overnight figures. While this is a great figure for the show (and well up on the 8.4 million overnight figure for Easter’s “Planet Of The Dead”) it was streets behind The X-Factor results show (14.3 million) and even beaten by I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here (9.8 million). But for a drama it's a very impressive figure.
On the plus side, "Waters Of Mars” was the sixth most-watched show of the week, and you can bet there will be healthy additions to that figure when other stats come out (people who recorded it, people who watched on the Beeb’s high definition channel, etc). Final figures will be out in a couple of weeks’ time.
UPDATE An additional 310,000 watched the episode on BBC HD, which, if confirmed, would be the highest ever rating for BBC HD. Also, according to five-minutes breakdowns, the peak audience for "Waters Of Mars” was 10.4 million in its final five minutes. Blimey, I bet those tuning in for Antiques Roadshow didn’t know what had hit them.
