{"id":83047,"date":"2025-08-21T17:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T17:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/83047\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T17:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T17:07:07","slug":"doctor-who-will-continue-bbc-reassures-fans-doctor-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/83047\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who will continue, BBC reassures fans | Doctor Who"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been attacked for running \u201cwoke\u201d storylines and criticised for falling ratings. Its leading actor made a surprise departure at the end of the last series. Yet the BBC has now issued a reassurance to Doctor Who<\/a> fans worried about the future of the show: \u201cthe Tardis is going nowhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speculation around the show had grown in recent months after Ncuti Gatwa<\/a> played the eponymous Doctor for only two series before departing in the finale of the programme\u2019s 15th series in May.<\/p>\n

Since then, both the BBC and Disney+ \u2013 which has co-funded the last two series \u2013 have been tight-lipped over the show\u2019s future. However, speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, the BBC\u2019s content chief, Kate Phillips, told anxious fans it had a future, whether or not Disney+<\/a> stayed onboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny Whovians out there, rest assured: Doctor Who is going nowhere,\u201d she said. \u201cDisney has been a great partnership and it continues with [Doctor Who spin-off] The War Between the Land and the Sea<\/a> next year. But going forward, with or without Disney, Doctor Who will still be on the BBC \u2026 The Tardis is going nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsay Salt, the director of BBC<\/a> Drama, said while there was no update on the timing of the next series, the corporation would \u201calways stay committed\u201d to it.<\/p>\n

The showrunner Russell T Davies had said over the summer that he remained in the dark about the future of the show. He has previously complained about the \u201conline warriors\u201d who claimed the show had become too woke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Davies, who also wrote Queer As Folk and It\u2019s a Sin, told BBC Radio 2: \u201cWhat you might call diversity, I just call an open door. Someone always brings up matters of diversity. And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Disney has been caught up in Donald Trump\u2019s drive in the US to challenge diversity policies. The US agency that oversees television said earlier this year it was investigating Disney\u2019s diversity and inclusion practices.<\/p>\n

Brendan Carr, who oversees the Federal Communications Commission, said he was acting over concerns Disney was promoting diversity \u201cin a manner that does not comply\u201d with the law.<\/p>\n

Should Disney+ opt to not continue co-funding and distributing Doctor Who, the BBC will have to find other ways to produce it. That could mean raising funds from a group of distributors around the world, or producing it in-house on a tighter budget.<\/p>\n

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Ratings had been falling, though the success of the show has been hard to calculate. While Disney\u2019s involvement has given the Time Lord\u2019s adventures a global audience, the platform does not release viewing figures.<\/p>\n

An analysis of the most recent series by Deadline, using seven-day viewing figures for its BBC outing, found it was half a million viewers down on last year\u2019s series. Season 13, which featured Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, secured 1.7 million more viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been attacked for running \u201cwoke\u201d storylines and criticised for falling ratings. Its leading actor made a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-83047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}