The Day of the Doctor

THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR was the 50th anniversary edition of Doctor Who; the 77-minute special was broadcast by the BBC at 7.50pm on Saturday, 23 November 2013, as well as being shown in cinemas up and down the country, as a 2D or 3D presentation.

Although most cinema screenings were scheduled to begin at the same time as the TV transmission at 7.50pm, the cinematic presentation had additional introductory material, which meant the main feature itself did not start until after 8pm.

Global Simulcast

Poster for Russian cinema screenings

The special was also simulcast around the globe, with the majority of foreign stations screening the episode all at the exact same time.

For most of the countries in Latin America, South East Asia, and continental Africa, the broadcast was via the local BBC Entertainment satellite channel (which had previously been a home to Classic Doctor Who when it was called BBC Prime).

By late 2013, the New Series of Doctor Who had been available on those BBC Entertainment channels for several years: in Asia since October 2006; South Africa since September 2008; and Europe and the Middle East from November 2009.

For all other countries, the special was shown on a local station. The simulcast was offered to the primary broadcaster who had the option of whether or not to take the simulcast.

In the case of New Zealand, however, although Prime was originally to show the episode starting at 8.50am (which, due to the country's relative position over the international date line, was on Sunday, 24 November), it later decided to air the story at 9am, meaning a delay of 10 minutes. Some reports state this was because Prime couldn't air a PGR-rated programme prior to 9am, but the true reason for the time-shift was the broadcaster preferred to have its programmes start on the hour.

It's unknown how many viewers in each country tuned in to watch the special broadcast - especially for those in the Asia / Pacific region, where it was in the very early hours of the morning (of Sunday, 24 November), while in a number of non-English speaking parts of Europe, Africa and Asia it was the half-century celebration of a programme that had only been showing for a couple of years.

Some BBC reports stated that the special was broadcast in "15 languages", but it's unknown what those languages were, or whether it was dubbed or just subtitled.

The special was also shown in select cinemas across the globe (some reports specified 834 cinemas, while others cited as many as 1,500 theatres in 25 countries), some of which also showed the 3D version.

• Cinema screenings in Latin America
• Cinema screenings in Russia

Guinness World Record

Guinness Certificate presented at the ExCel event

On the morning of Sunday, 24 November 2013, at the 50th Anniversary event held at the ExCel convention centre in London, exec-producer / showrunner Steven Moffat was presented with a certificate from Guinness Book of World Records declaring that:

"The record for the largest worldwide TV drama simulcast was achieved by the special 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who, which was broadcast in 94 countries across 6 continents at 19:50 (GMT) on 23 November 2013"

A slightly different version of the Guinness certificate was revealed by the press in the days that followed; this one upped the number of countries to 98:

"The largest TV drama simulcast was achieved by the special 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who, which was broadcast in 98 countries across six continents at 19:50 (GMT) on 23 November 2013"

Guinness certificate with 94 countries, as presented at the ExCel event

Later amended Guinness certificate with 98 countries

And the print edition of Guinness World Records dated 2015 on the cover but published in 2014 says:

"Largest TV drama simulcast At 7:50 p.m. (GMT) on 23 Nov 2013, the 50th-anniversary episode of Doctor Who (BBC, UK) was broadcast in 98 countries across six continents..."

Footage of the presentation at the ExCel can be seen on Youtube:

98 Countries?

This pre-broadcast chart from the BBC lists only 82 countries and the original timeslot for New Zealand

We have not been able to find one official list that names all 98 countries, but combining data from all the various published lists we believe have identifed them - plus a few more!

In all likelihood, any "official" figure given would only ever be a rough estimate, one that has taken into account the geographical catchment area of each of the BBC Entertainment signals, irrespective of whether or not anyone was watching.

Indeed, several of the countries named by the BBC are island groups, plus there are 14 eastern European nations that could receive the Russian channel NKS, which does indeed give the total closer to (or over) 98.

Some of the foreign news reports at the time also named other countries in their lists, such as Denmark and Norway - which as far as we can tell, did not take up the simulcast. And like New Zealand, there would be several other countries that did not join the simulcast but who also did screen The Day of the Doctor at a later time or date -- see our New Series page.

Our Table below lists the countries that took part in the simulcast, and is presented via time zone (using a 24 hour clock), with the countries that took part in the simulcast arranged in rough geographical order moving from west to east. The countries can also be sorted alphabetically, by Region, or by station. (Although the simulcast took place on Saturday evening in the UK, due to the international time zones, countries in the west saw it in the late morning or during the afternoon, while countries in the east saw it on Sunday morning.)

No	Time	Country	Station	Continent	Notes
1	11:50	Canada	Space	North America	earliest start time of multiple time zones: 11:50 Pacific, 14:50 East
2	11:50	United States	BBC America	North America	earliest start time of multiple time zones: 11:50 Pacific, 12:50 Mountain, 13:50 Central, 14:50 East
3	13:50	Mexico	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
4	13:50	Guatemala	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
5	13:50	Honduras	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
6	13:50	El Salvador	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
7	13:50	Nicaragua	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
8	13:50	Costa Rica	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
9	14:50	Panama	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
10	14:50	Colombia	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
11	14:50	Ecuador	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
12	14:50	Peru	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
13	15:20	Venezuela	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
14	15:50	Bolivia	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
15	15:50	Dominican Republic	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America / Caribbean
16	16:50	Chile	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
17	16:50	Argentina	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
18	16:50	Paraguay	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
19	17:50	Brazil	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
20	17:50	Uruguay	BBC Ent / BBC HD	Latin America
21	18:50	Cape Verde Islands	BBC Ent	Africa
22	19:50	**United Kingdom**	BBC One	Europe
23	19:50	Senegal	BBC Ent	Africa
24	19:50	Mauritania	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
25	19:50	Gambia	BBC Ent	Africa
26	19:50	Guinea Bissau	BBC Ent	Africa
27	19:50	Guinea	BBC Ent	Africa
28	19:50	Sierra Leone	BBC Ent	Africa
29	19:50	Liberia	BBC Ent	Africa
30	19:50	Mali	BBC Ent	Africa
31	19:50	Cote d'Ivoire	BBC Ent	Africa
32	19:50	Burkina Faso	BBC Ent	Africa
33	19:50	Ghana	BBC Ent	Africa
34	19:50	Togo	BBC Ent	Africa
35	19:50	Sao Tome & Principe	BBC Ent	Africa
36	20:50	France	France4	Europe
37	20:50	Germany	FOX	Europe
38	20:50	Italy	RAI	Europe
39	20:50	Poland	BBC Ent	Europe
40	20:50	Benin	BBC Ent	Africa
41	20:50	Niger	BBC Ent	Africa
42	20:50	Nigeria	BBC Ent	Africa
43	20:50	Cameroon	BBC Ent	Africa
44	20:50	Equatorial Guinea	BBC Ent	Africa
45	20:50	Gabon	BBC Ent	Africa
46	20:50	Congo	BBC Ent	Africa
47	20:50	DR of the Congo	BBC Ent	Africa
48	20:50	Chad	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
49	20:50	Central African Republic	BBC Ent	Africa
50	20:50	Angola	BBC Ent	Africa
51	21:50	Finland	YLE	Europe
52	21:50	Israel	YES	Europe
53	21:50	Namibia	BBC Ent	Africa
54	21:50	Botswana	BBC Ent	Africa
55	21:50	South Africa	BBC Ent	Africa
56	21:50	Swaziland	BBC Ent	Africa
57	21:50	Zambia	BBC Ent	Africa
58	21:50	Zimbabwe	BBC Ent	Africa
59	21:50	Mozambique	BBC Ent	Africa
60	21:50	Burundi	BBC Ent	Africa
61	21:50	Rwanda	BBC Ent	Africa
62	21:50	Malawi	BBC Ent	Africa
63	22:50	Sudan	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
64	22:50	South Sudan	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
65	22:50	Turkey	NTV	Europe
66	22:50	Tanzania & Zanzibar	BBC Ent	Africa
67	22:50	Uganda	BBC Ent	Africa
68	22:50	Kenya	BBC Ent	Africa
69	22:50	Ethiopia	BBC Ent	Africa
70	22:50	Eritrea	BBC Ent	Africa
71	22:50	Djibouti	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
72	22:50	Somalia	BBC Ent	Africa / Middle East
73	22:50	Madagascar	BBC Ent	Africa
74	23:50	Mauritius	BBC Ent	Africa
75	23:50	Seychelles	BBC Ent	Africa
76-90	23:50	Russia	Karousel / NKS (NST)	Europe	Episode was called День Доктора - NKS coverage also includes Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia
91	2:20	Myanmar	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
92	2:50	Thailand	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
93	2:50	Indonesia	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
94	3:50	Malaysia	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
95	3:50	Singapore	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
96	3:50	Hong Kong	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
97	3:50	Taiwan	BBC Ent	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
98	4:50	Korea (South)	BBC Ent / KBS2	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013
99	6:50	Australia	ABC	Australasia / Asia	on 24/11/2013; earliest start time for multiple time zones: 6:50 East

• BBC list of 75 countries
• TVB Europe reports on the simulcast

Simulcast 2020

On Saturday, 21 March 2020 at 7pm in the UK, another form of simulcast was held online, with fans around the world taking part in a communal rewatch of the episode via whatever method they could - pop in the DVD, watch via an Online service (BBC iPlayer, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime, Google Play) - and participate in the "live chat" on Twitter, using the 2013 hashtag #SaveTheDay.

The idea for the live rewatch came from Doctor Who Magazine's Emily Cook as a means of beating the self-isolation blues by bringing together fans (especially those stuck inside while exercising social distancing) during the worldwide COVID-19 crisis.

Fully supporting the initiative, Steven Moffat wrote a special introduction video featuring a puppet of Strax the Sontaran (voiced by Dan Starkey); this was released online at 6.30pm. Moffat also contributed to the rewatch by Tweeting a live commentary.

• Radio Times
• Doctor Who News Site - New Scene

Links

• New Series
• Broadcasts around the World