Well that's how the whole rating system works, all the figures are at demographic level and the UK has one of the most robust in the world. Though when they say children they mean 3-16 year olds to be precise.
By the same token then, you have no basis to claim Doctor Who's audience is "kid based". Because the data suggests otherwise, and you reject the data. Again, there's not much to base that on. The stats don't support a conclusion that Who suffers from long breaks. Certainly other shows with Who's enduring brand recognition that take long breaks don't either. On the contrary, I think there are a lot of valid comparisons to be drawn. Long running but relatively short seasons with big gaps, enduring brand recognition, 'water cooler' TV people look forward to, major BBC properties at home and abroad, and in Sherlock's case a nerdy fandom following which I'd wager overlaps significantly with Who's.
Having patience with Doctor Who isn't a new issue. In the 70's & 80's, we'd wait years for PBS to get their hands on new seasons while they did Tom Baker reruns over and over every Sunday night. And that was certainly about money. Most PBS stations were perpetually broke. What the BBC are doing now is still really irritating. No good reason for it unless they want to piss off the viewers.
And some PBS stations only got Tom Baker. My PBS only had him and a few McCoys, although I might have seen one Davison when I was really young. Point is we Whovians are use to waiting. This isn't even remotely new.
And my point is, we don't deserve to wait, either. I wouldn't object if I had any inkling that the BBC was properly respectivng Doctor Who as a show of importance and demanding of respect that it deserves after being almost 40 on the air. Instead, I have this sensation that the BBC basically sneers and contemptuously looks at Doctor Who with disdain and posh snobbery, as if its somehow a miracle it still goes on, and that its gonna be back after a gap year is something that we should be gratified for. Fuck you, BBC. FUCK!
For a kid a year IS an eternity? I guess we should have Christmas every 6 months? Halloween 3 times a year? No. We won’t and we don’t. Kids don’t only watch one thing. They don’t play with only one toy. I bet its more adults complaining and handwringing than kids.
Wow, the amount of self-entitlement in this post would be scary if weren't so hysterical. Get over it already.
Yeah I mean when a TV series that the BBC looks at in disdain starts to slip in the ratings the obvious move was for them to hire one of the most sought after writers in British TV and then give it a great new slot to improve ratings. How dare they treat it with such contempt!
I was actually thinking the longer it is off the air the less relevent it is in the memory and the less merchandise they tend to sell, i am sure i remember them complaining that merchandise sales were not good during the last couple of hiatus..... hiatuses.........breaks, the show took. lol
When I was a kid, my PBS station started with Pertwee, and ended with Colin Baker, so I never got to see McCoy in his original run, and now I'm afraid to because I'm not sure how well I'll adapt to how the series has aged.
But Who, more than most British shows, is an international show. I don't think they're taking that into account when they treat it like any other UK programme.
Going to assume you're not British. The BBC treat Doctor Who with a sort of reverence which is probably not all that healthy for it, actually. It is their "big hit" drama series, internationally distributed and given a latitude few British made shows are to have long series (for us), and creative freedom. The announcement of a new Doctor is a national event. Personally I think the BBC could have been more intrusively crucial during some of the more bizarrely self indulgent excesses of the Smith/Capaldi era. Well when it was on, Sherlock was number two on the international sales list, and that's always had long breaks too. Shows are always made primarily for their domestic market, same is true of US properties sold abroad.
Nope. I just missed the part where it made him so sought after. Especially as he came from the NuWho stable in the first place.
Yeah by now it's pretty obvious your knowledge of how British TV works is pretty non existent. It averaged around 10m for each of its three series and won lots of awards, that doesn't happen often. He already had a good reputation but that opens a lot of doors. And he had already created and been the main writer of a drama series before his Who work came along.