Doctor Who was created to fill a gap in the schedules in 1963, but how has the series fared with British audiences across six decades?

A copy of the telegram sent by Donald Wilson to Sydney Newman on 27 November 1963, congratulating him on the first episode of Doctor Who.

Above The November 21-27 1964 edition of the Radio Times promoted The Dalek Invasion of Earth on the cover.

What was the BBC looking for when it commissioned a peculiar drama about an old man who travels through time and space in a police box? Put simply, it was looking for something to bridge the gap between the sports programmes on Saturday afternoons and family viewing later in the evening. Something that everyone could enjoy together.

Although it got off to a rocky start (for the first episode, ‘everyone’ constituted just 4.4 million people), things soon picked up. By early 1964, more than ten million people watched the climax of the first Dalek serial. Doctor Who was a hit. And by the time the Daleks returned in late 1964, ratings had soared. A new peak was reached on Boxing Day, as 12.4 million tuned in for the final episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. That record only lasted a fortnight. In January 1965, 13 million watched the second episode of The Rescue, matched a week later by the first part of The Romans. In February, this peak was smashed again, as 13.5 million watched the Zarbi in the first episode of The Web Planet, making it the seventh-most-watched programme of the week.

A Zarbi in The Web Planet (1965).

However, a year later things were looking a little less rosy. In February 1966, ratings slipped to their lowest level since the first episode, with only 5.8 million watching the final instalment of The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve. The following week, the first part of The Ark fared even worse, a rating of 5.5 million causing Doctor Who to crash out of the week’s top 100 programmes for the first time since its opening night in 1963. William Hartnell’s penultimate serial, The Smugglers, suggested a terminal decline, with a new low – 4.2 million – for Episode 3.