BBC ‘offering Doctor Who to other platforms’

Casey Cooper-Fiske, Press Association Senior Entertainment Reporter

The BBC is “working hard” on regenerating Doctor Who, director-general Matt Brittin has said.

The sci-fi series currently faces an uncertain future after its annual Christmas special was axed for the second year in a row this year, while screenwriter and TV producer Russell T Davies, who rebooted the programme in 2005, announced his Doctor Who departure in June.

Speaking ahead of the release of the BBC’s 2026 annual report, Brittin said: “On Doctor Who, we’ve said actually that we’re going out to tender (offering the programme to other platforms).

“That’s a show that has regenerated multiple times in its 60-plus year history, and we’ll do so again, and I think that’s one of the great things about the 100-year history of the BBC, we can do that, and we can creatively renew content and shows that people love, and we’ll be working hard on that right now.”

The show’s 2026 Christmas special was due to be written by Davies and produced by Bad Wolf. It was to follow on from the series finale last May in which Ncuti Gatwa’s incarnation of the Doctor regenerated into Billie Piper, who previously played the Doctor’s assistant, Rose.

Announcing his departure, Davies said Doctor Who’s future is “unpredictable and new” and he was “excited to see what comes next”, adding the programme’s “big new future” involves it being put out for “competitive tender”.

He said: “There won’t be a Christmas special – we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no-one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it.

“You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for more Doctor Who than a one-off. So it’s worth it.”

A BBC spokesperson said of the cancellation: “After careful consideration the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode.

“This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series.

“It was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one-off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show, which ensures that when the Tardis lands once more, it does so in all its glory.”

The corporation said its previously announced Doctor Who animation series, which will air on CBeebies, is currently in production.

Doctor Who, which first launched in 1963, follows the adventures of an eccentric Time Lord who travels in a spaceship larger on the inside, that disguises itself as a 1960s British police box.

Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy and William Hartnell are among the stars who portrayed reincarnations of the Doctor in the original series of the show, which was cancelled in 1989.

It was later revived in 2005 by showrunner Davies, and in the last two decades stars including Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith and Jodie Whittaker have played the Doctor.