BBC America's top series, Doctor Who, delivered another ratings record for the network with close to 1.3 million viewers in live plus same day Nielsens.
The sci-fi series, a second season into a new cast, surpassed last April's premiere for the prior season by 71,000 total viewers. That year-ago episode had been the network's best-ever telecast before Saturday night's Doctor Who episode, titled "The Impossible Astronaut" and featuring the first scenes of the venerable British series to be shot in America.
The episode also aired on Saturday in the United Kingdom on BBC1. The BBC reported it drew an average audience of 6.5 million viewers, which was down from 8 million a year ago in Matt Smith's debut episode. The BBC noted it was a sunny Saturday during a four-day weekend there.
Other U.S. stats:
Viewership across all of BBC America's Doctor Who YouTube content reached an all-time high of 3.5 million views.
The official debut of Doctor Who on Tumblr surpassed 10,000 followers in two weeks.
Doctor Who was the #1 TV series on the iTunes store as of Monday evening.
BBCAMERICA.com pulled in its largest traffic ever. On its best day, Saturday, April 23, 74% of users were new visitors to the site.
The premiere episode, the first part of a special two-parter set in the U.S. and penned by "Who supremo" Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Coupling), sees the return of the Doctor (Matt Smith), his travelling companion Amy (Karen Gillan), Rory (Arthur Darvill) and River Song (Alex Kingston).
