Everyone knows that, by any measure, "Doctor Who" is doing really well. It's the biggest BBC drama after the soaps and gets, most weeks, around 8 million viewers (including the "time-shifted" ratings for those who have recorded it). In terms of raw ratings this doesn't sound huge, given that it often got 12-13 million in the 60s and 70s, but we live in a fragmented multimedia world and I can understand that, at 7pm on a Saturday some people are plugged onto their Playstations or already largeing it down at their raves with their designer downloaded drugs, or whatever they do these days.
But most people I know - the vast majority of whom are parents of children under 10 - watch it. Just about everyone seems aware it's on. Which rather begs the question not of why 8 million people should choose to watch "Doctor Who" but why 52 million don't?
Let's be charitable and assume that a) 10 million or so are babies and toddlers and so don't have control of the remote, b) another 5 million or so detest "science fiction" (not that it is sci-fi, not really) and would rather pull their own teeth out than ever watch it, and c) about 5 million people don't have access to a telly/assume it rots their brains/ chucked their TV on the skip in 1997 and never looked back. I've no idea if those figures are right, but they don't seem unreasonable...
The next important thing is the audience share - how many people who watched telly were watching a given channel. Anything over 30% is seen as good and over 35% is phenomenal. BBC1 usually gets a 37-39% share when "Doctor Who" is on. So what are the other 60-odd percent doing? Let's assume there really are, as the ratings tell us, 3-4 million ardent Vernon Kay fans in the country who actively tune in for his "Gameshow Marathon" because he is so talented and entertaining. That takes care of about 20%. Where are the rest? I just genuinely can't imagine putting the telly on at 7pm on a Saturday night and choosing to watch a "Two Ronnies" repeat on ITV4, or "Whose Line Is It Anyway" on Five US, or something called "Bridezillas" on some other crappy cable channel, instead of a brand spanking new and wonderful episode of the best thing on the telly.
If you are unmoved by Who, have never watched it, or watched it and gave up with it, or actively hate it - tell me why.
Over to you...