Dr Who - MASSIVE SPOILER ON THE FRONT PAGE OF DAILY MAIL.

[BloodandGlitter]

Just a warning for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, there's a huge spoiler as headline news on the mails website.

Is it a spoiler once it has been aired? Genuine question

So exciting….

It’s also the front of the BBC News app. It’s been aired so it’s fair game really.

Whilst i agree that if it's been aired it's fair game, it's also really fucking annoying if you work weekends and decide to doom scroll on the bus on the way home!

My DD was most upset as she got a notification on her phone. She was out and I’d texted her with ‘ omg call me when you’ve watched’ and then she got the notification.

Yes I’ve told her to switch them off 🙄.

I also wonder if they want to make it big news as the viewer numbers are falling through the floor and splashing it all over the news makes it more exciting?

People still watch this?

Are you trying to say that you don’t like it? On a thread where people who do like it are talking about it? Or are you really genuinely confused?

Did wonder why the BBC were making such a big deal of it while viewing figures are struggling so much. I suppose @ChompandaGrazia has a point.

I've never watched it.

I don't think TV show storylines should be news.

I don't think it's fair to put the spoiler in headlines everywhere and then put IN THE ARTICLE 'this story may contain spoilers' which the BBC did themselves! Idiots!!

These are my opinions.

It was on the normal ‘on the hour every hour’ news on Radio 4.

I would rather not have known yet, but I didn’t expect a spoiler in the standard R4 10pm news, between a programme about drug deaths and The Food Programme.

In these days of catch-up TV, it's utterly stupid to broadcast spoilers after a programme has first been aired. So many people prefer to watch on iPlayer, or old-fashioned record it and want to watch it later.

There seem to be a lot of programmes now where the makers are determined to spoil them and thus reduce the number of viewers they get.

Even in the introductions before programmes, or in the US-style teasers at the start, they often give so much away that I can only assume they're wanting to make people give up and not bother watching any further. Quite why, I have absolutely no idea.

We went to catch up on the last celeb special of Bridge Of Lies on iPlayer a couple of days after it aired (and clashed with something else). Even the thumbnail very clearly gave away how many people had got through and how much money they'd banked.

We still watched to see the questions, but the jeopardy that is the main point of gameshows had all been spoilt - through stupid incompetence, the BBC had deliberately sabotaged their own programme.

Dr Who is a kids’ show. So who cares?

That's a bit goady - you know full well how many adults hugely enjoy it too. It's very much a family show, in the truest sense.

And even if it were only of interest to kids, don't you think that those kids also wouldn't want to have it spoilt before they had chance to watch it?

I don't care if it is a kids show. I loved it!

I was spoilered on FB a few days ago, unfortunately.

It's not a spoiler if the programme's already been on. Billie Piper also posted on Instagram, should she not have done that? It's all co-ordinated PR.

I guess the problem is that they have kept it secret but they can’t keep it secret now. If the papers (and who reads newspapers anyway) want to report it then they are fully entitled too. It was known that the current actor is leaving so they could have made the headline a bit more ambiguous.

The BBC news website has a big headline that gives the spoiler and then, before the actual article (so after the spoiler headline), it then gives a spoiler warning to anybody about to read the article!

Whether they use it or not, I think most people in the UK have heard of BBC iPlayer - so it's utterly astonishing that the BBC themselves appear not to be aware of its existence.

So when do people want to hear the news? I don't know how this can be considered a spoiler don't they release who is in main role in most shows like this, or in Strictly, James Bond etc.

I’d heard rumours of it about a week ago, but I was still surprised. I do think it’s unfair for them to publish stuff like that so soon though - they could at least wait a day or two!

But this is exactly what a spoiler is: the vital plot twist that somebody who hasn't yet seen it won't want to know before they have seen it, by being told (or hearing it discussed) by people who have seen it.

If nobody has yet been able to see it - with the producers and actors presumably sworn to secrecy as to what happens - there could be no such thing as a spoiler in the first place!

That's ridiculous. How long do you think they should wait until everyone who might watch has watched?

They could at least wait a few days after it airs.

Especially when you stop to consider whom the articles are actually intended for.

Not for the fans who've already seen the show, as they clearly know what happened and don't need to read what is, for them, old news.

Not for the people who have no interest in the show, who don't care one way or the other and will completely ignore the headline - the same as I do whenever there's anything reported about football.

The only people left are the ones with a vague passing interest - who will just see the article as a bit of ephemeral gossip before forgetting it and moving on; and those who love the show, but were at work or otherwise unable to see it when it was aired, and were really looking forward to watching it as soon as they have chance, but the articles have now pointlessly ruined a large part of the excitement for them.

Who actually benefits?

Still ridiculous.

IMO it's not the same as broadcasting who will be the next Bond, or who's in strictly. The doctor regenerating is a major plot point and seeing which new face he/she is getting is massive.