Since the viewing figures for Space Babies and The Devil's Chord released yesterday, I've seen a lot of people freaking out that neither episode made it much over 4 million viewers. Given that these numbers are around about what they were in 1989 when the show was cancelled, it seems many people think that the end is nigh, and RTD's relaunch has been a total failure.

This is however missing a lot of context. For starters, when the show was cancelled at the end of the 1980s there were only 4 channels. Home recording hardware was available, but extremely expensive and usually unaffordable for the majority of people. If you wanted to watch a show, you had to watch it live. 4 million in 1989 is in no way the same as it is in 2024.

Even since the show returned in 2005 the landscape has changed dramatically. Catchup and streaming services didn't exist yet. The digital switchover hadn't happened yet, meaning a large amount of people still only had 5 channels. Those that did have digitial TV were likely on freeview, which at most had about 50-60 channels. Today, we have thousands of channels on multiple digital media services, and thats not to mention the dozens of streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime, Disney+, and NOW that further divide the audience. We are never getting back the days where an episode can regularly reach 10m viewers. Comparing Series 14 viewing figures to Series 4 ones is utterly worthless.

So, how do we measure the health of the show compared to its own past?

Simple! We use the weekly rankings for the episodes, rather than the viewership numbers themselves. This is how music charts are compiled and no one has any issues with that system. Its also the only way to consistently measure the viewership, while still accounting for the change in viewing habits over the last 20 years.

I've seen a lot of people state that the show is as healthy as its ever been just like I am now, but without the numbers to back it up. Well, I've decided to bring those numbers.

I've compiled a spreadsheet of the weekly placing for every single episode back to 1963 taken from their first transmission date. This was done using figures from , which is an excellent resource. The figures from the iPlayer age are compiled using their 7 day rating, which includes everyone who watched it within a week of transmission, as is standard procedure these days.

It's broken down by classic and revival eras, by each Doctor, and by each revival showrunner, but the graph on the first page is the entire history of the show.

So, what can we tell from these figures?

• Only five episodes have been the number 1 most watched show of their week: Journey's End, The End of Time Part I, The End of Time Part II, The Day of the Doctor, and The Woman Who Fell To Earth.

• The classic show had two golden ages of viewership: under Hartnell in 1964-1965, and under Tom Baker in 1975-1977.

• Troughton and Pertwee's castings saved the show. Both arrested accellerating drops in the rankings, with Pertwee's ranks actually increasing towards his end.

• The true nadir of the show's popularity was not at its cancellation under Sylvester McCoy, but Tom Baker's final season. Averaging at 106th for any given week that it was on, it reached its absolute lowest point during episode 2 of Full Circle, when it only achieved 170th.

• After initially recovering to the norm under Peter Davison, a steady decline began towards the end of his run, which continued into the eras of his two successors and culminated in the shows cancellation.

• The final time that the classic show appeared in the Top 20 for the week was episode 5 of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, hitting 18th on the 26th March 1977. This means it continued running for twelve years achieving rankings that the revival has consistently outperformed.

• The lowest that the revival has ever dropped is 35th. This was for Can You Hear Me? on the 9th February 2020.

• Only two episodes in the RTD1 era fell out of the Top 20. Bizzarely, they were The Empty Child (21st) and Silence in the Library (27th).

• The run from Midnight to The End of Time is unprecedented in the history of the show. Achieving rankings of 5th, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 5th, 5th, 1st, and 1st - nothing else comes close to this level of success.

• The decline in the revival seems to begin just after the 50th anniversary. Some might put this down to Capaldi being too abrasive in Series 8, but its also possible that a lot of the general audience saw the 50th as a natural conclusion and gave up (a bit like what happened to the MCU after Endgame).

• Chibnall's era of the revival is the least consistent. The first half of Series 11 never left the Top 10 and he finished strongly with Power of the Doctor (5th), but only eight episodes out of his last 20 as showrunner made the Top 20.

• So far, RTD2 is on par with the majority of RTD1, the runup to the 50th, and the first half of Series 11.

I love this show, and its saddening to see other people who love it scared for its future because scaremongers in the press (and sometimes from within the fandom itself) are willfully ignorant of the fact that things have changed so dramatically that we cannot measure them the same way that we used to.

Anyway, I hope you like my spreadsheet. Although I made it for my own enjoyment (yes I am very fun at parties) I thought it might be helpful to share.