On Sunday evening BBC One hosted a live programme to name the actor cast to play the next Doctor after Matt Smith leaves Doctor Who at Christmas. A peak of 6.9m UK fans tuned in for the biggest casting announcement of the year.
The special was simulcast in the US on BBC America where it aired at 2pm local time and was seen by 895,000.
In addition, almost 40,000 Australian fans watched the show on at 4am on ABC with a further 41,000 watching the programme on iview, ABC’s catch up service.
In Canada 412,000 fans tuned in to the special when it aired on Space, the popular cable channel which broadcasts Doctor Who.
BBC Worldwide says Doctor Who Live: The New Doctor also claimed the top spot of most talked about TV show (outside of sport) on social media in the US** beating the likes of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never on MTV and Keeping Up With The Kardashians on E!
On Tumblr, there were 11.84 million views of the Official US Doctor Who Tumblr since the show’s announcement, and fans created 3 million Doctor Who-related reblogs on the day of the show.
Twitter activity around the special was double the hit sci-fi series’ season average for BBC America and at the peak of the activity, six out of the ten trending topics in the US were related to the announcement.