Just released to the Doctor Who youtube channel, with the announcement (excerpted):
Are you ready for this? 😉 Watch Doctor Who from the 11th May on BBC iPlayer in the UK and stream on Disney+ where available. Find out more here: https://bbc.in/4a5c1vA
I guess this is what RTD was teasing the other day on Instagram…
Yes? The episode will premiere on iPlayer at midnight for the UK. At which point it will be ~7pm in America. It will then air on BBC One hours later, presumably at the usual UK time slot.
So if I want to watch it as it goes live I’ll have to stay up till midnight and for the duration of the episode. Whereas in America, it’ll be a normal time for them.
And yes I can wait till later in the day to watch the episode but then I’ll be missing that feeling of watching it with everyone else and not to mention it’ll have to be the first thing I do for the day if I want to avoid spoilers
I mean… The nature of iPlayer media is that you can watch it at your leisure, so that is entirely a pressure you put on yourself.
For the same reason I don’t see how the British license fee puts any obligation on the BBC to publish streaming media at a time that is more convenient for license payers — nor how this is somehow a nefarious Disney scheme.