Regional TAM ratings for the week ending 29 December 1963 show the impact the Daleks were making.
Susan (Carole Ann Ford) and the Doctor (William Hartnell) meet strange machine creatures in
The Survivors,
the second episode of the first Dalek serial (1963-64).
The ITV network, traditionally the BBC’s main television rival, will celebrate its 70th anniversary in September 2025. But if ITV somehow had a collective memory, and could think back over time, one of the things it would surely arrange differently would be its Saturday teatime schedule for 28 December 1963.
Back then, ITV was a set of regional companies, each of which could at times be running completely different programmes, and such was the case that Saturday evening. This of course wouldn’t matter if each company had a strong, popular show; few viewers would care if it was going out nationally or not. But on the final Saturday of 1963, the ITV stations put out a rag-tag assortment of odds and ends, some of which were already several years old: some had The Adventures of Robin Hood, some had the 1956 film series The Buccaneers, and ABC showed the puppet series Space Patrol.
It was an open goal for the BBC, for whom the Daleks were gliding into full action for the very first time in The Survivors – the second episode of the first Dalek serial. Aglimpse of a Dalek’s arm had been seen at the end of the previous week’s instalment, and it clearly worked as an effective teaser. The 28 December episode was Doctor Who’s first to make a ratings showing, with the TAM audience-research company registering it as the BBC’s top-rated show that week in the north of England. The word-ofmouth impact of the Daleks appears to have been enormous. The following week, viewing figures nationally were up by a third, and for the final two episodes of the serial Doctor Who broke the ten million viewer barrier for the very first time.