Doctor Who‘s executive producer Steven Moffat has told fans that the show will continue for at least another five years.

Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine in the new issue, Moffat commented: “Ten years on, our ratings are pretty much the same. Actually, internationally, bigger. No show does that! You’re meant to go down! Doctor Who just stays. It’s extraordinary!”

He added: “When I first took it over, the BBC said to me, ‘We’ve done all our calculations. The ratings will now fall. Expect to lose quite a bit. We don’t mind that. We’re going to keep it going. So long as it’s a good show we won’t mind if the ratings stop being quite as amazing as they were. That’s absolutely fine.’ And they didn’t. They pretty much stayed the same.”

The showrunner revealed: “I thought it would last ten years. I didn’t think it would last ten years with BBC Worldwide trying to get me in a room to talk about their plan for the next five years! So it’s going to do a minimum of 15.”

Doctor Who celebrated the tenth anniversary of its 21st century revival last month.

Ben Stephenson, the BBC’s Head of Drama Commissioning, also stated: “…we plan to keep it regularly in the schedules. But because it’s such an amazing format, because you can constantly revive it and re-imagine it, then as long as the people looking after it are passionate about it and the BBC is passionate about it, there’s absolutely no reason why it can’t do another 50 years.”

The new season of Doctor Who began filming in Cardiff in January and will air on BBC One this autumn.

> Here’s everything we know about Season 9 so far.

What are your hopes for the show’s future? Let us know below…