UPDATE: Doctors final episode on November 14th 2024 gets 1.6 million viewers - the highest for any daytime programme on any channel!

Since the announcement in October 2023 that the highly rated, popular daytime drama Doctors was to be cancelled in early 2024, we have appealed to BBC senior management on 3 occasions, asking them to review this calamitous decision.

We have received a polite reply, saying the decision was a difficult one to make, but due to increasing costs in drama, Doctors was cancelled. No comment was made on our request to review the decision. Apparently, the budget for Doctors is to be reinvested in production in the Midlands. We have asked how much that is worth, but that piece of information has been denied.

As at November 2024, we have not been able to confirm with the BBC what that budget will be spent on. We note that Father Brown and Sister Boniface have been renewed this year, but it seems likely that these would have been recommissioned by BBC Studios anyway, as they earn significant overseas programme sales. The last edition of Doctors was broadcast on Thursday November 14th, and the Drama Village production unit at Selly Oak closed in April. 

To put that into context, it was getting more viewers than most non-news daytime TV programmes on either BBC1 or ITV1. More than: Homes under the Hammer; Politics Live; Escape to the Country; Money for Nothing; Rip-off Britain; Lorraine; Good Morning Britain, Tenable and many others - both daytime and prime time.

Indeed, it was often getting more viewers on its day of broadcast than anything shown on Channel 4 or 5 all day. Even BBC2 could only get a higher rating with one programme - shown in the evening.

Considering the very small drama budget that Doctors was made for, it's slightly ironic that the only non-news daytime programme on BBC daytime with a higher rating was Bargain Hunt. 

Doctors has been, and remained highly successful despite receiving virtually no on-screen promotion whatsoever from BBC Continuity! It provided full time employment for over 100 cast, crew and writers in the Midlands. These jobs have now gone.

We acknowledge the BBC is under financial pressure but we are also aware that the Midlands has already seen the biggest reductions of BBC production activity and facilities in the UK.

The region is not adequately represented in BBC production and output, and certainly not when compared to other parts of the country.

We do not believe that the Midlands should be on the receiving end of any further cutbacks to the BBC’s presence and its facilities. We have already shouldered more than our fair share.

To lose a highly successful and much appreciated daytime drama, and a small highly efficient production centre is an extraordinarily bad decision. The implications extend beyond one programme.

Campaign for Regional Broadcasting and Production. November 2024