DOCTOR WHO Trailer, and BBC’s New Costs

The BBC has released their trailer for season (they call it series) nine of Doctor Who, starring Peter Capaldi. Doctor Who returns with its new season in September and the trailer looks great. But then again, all trailers are supposed to make everything look great, right?

The ninth series will have a 12-episode run and this time around, there’s a new vigor within The Doctor and Clara to explore the universe and have fun. But of course, as you can see from the clip, there’s all kinds of trouble out there waiting to mess up their fun.

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On a troubling side note, did you know that where Doctor Who hails from, the U.K., that British households pay an annual license fee to get “free” television? That used to be what funded the production of their shows, and why, I suspect, their series run for three to nine or more episodes, but yet, running much shorter seasons than U.S. TV. Then again, advertisers drop just under $20 billion a season on U.S. television advertising, which pays the production bills here.


In recent weeks, the U.K. government must be looking to trim their tab a bit because they announced that the BBC will soon be responsible for picking up the bill for their television productions. (Other suspicions are that it’s a political move since some public figureheads are saying that their television is being flavored by their government’s influence.)

And the expectation of that bill will be around $1.2 billion for the BBC by 2020.

This new expenditure that the BBC is facing, has folks worried that shows like Doctor Who, Sherlock and other great content, will find themselves threatened. Especially after they just cut 1,000 jobs off their books.

Of course this will also bleed out into the online viewing market, where the BBC is looking to make a capital venture and possibly start charging those viewers. (Seems fair enough, though if you’ve become accustomed to free online viewing, it could seem harsh.)

The premise is that the BBC will continue to focus on their excellent production titles and what they call “factual” programming. The guesses are that they’ll probably let some of their sporting content drop. (Which does not make sense to me, considering how much of the bills sports contributes to U.S. television.) But if they can’t pony up the cash to televise an event, as they have already lost out to a few bidding wars for events, well, there’s that.

Here’s hoping the “good doctor” will survive this new, Earthly threat!!!

[ .hollywoodreporter. ]