‘Doctor Who’ 2012 Christmas episode sets record

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It’s no surprise that the Doctor Who Christmas Special was wildly popular. On the other hand, no one expected it to be this popular.

According to Bleeding Cool News, this year’s Christmas special in the UK alone had 9.87 million viewers either watch the show live or have it set to record on their DVRs.

The Snowmen was watched live by 5.75 million of the full 9.87 million score, meaning 4.12 million recorded it. That makes it the UK’s most recorded TV show ever.

This beats the previous recorded of 4.11 million recording a single show – which was actually already held by Doctor Who and the episode The Impossible Astronaut.

On top of this statistic, the BBC IPlayer and BBC America numbers are now in, and they are just as impressive.

Doctor Who was the most popular show on the BBC’s iPlayer during the Christmas through New Years period. According to The Guardian,

The Christmas special, in which the Doctor did battle with nefarious snowmen, had 1.47m programme requests on the video-on-demand service, heading a top five…Doctor Who was up more than 300% year on year, with 434,000 iPlayer views over the festive period for the 2011 Christmas special.

According to the Huffington Post, BBC America numbers are “1.4 million viewers, a 54 percent increase from 2011′s holiday episode.”

BBC America General Manager Perry Simon stated, “It feels exactly right to be ending the year on a ratings high with ‘Doctor Who’. The show has really delivered for us this year on every level. Cinematic scale, superb acting, cracking storylines and a growing band of dedicated fans … we can’t wait for the next series in spring 2013.”

Doctor Who has been on an unprecedented, international rise over the last three years. What do you think is the single greatest factor in the show’s success on this new level?