On 10 June 2026, the BBC announced its intention to offer a competitive tender for Doctor Who. The competitive tender process requires production companies to compete for the right to win the commission to produce programmes which are BBC intellectual property.

Interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine 632, former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat expressed his thoughts on how the BBC’s competitive tender process for Doctor Who will play out.

“There’ll be a lot of production companies excited at the idea,” Moffat told DWM. “I’m just guessing, but I think there will be a huge number thinking, ‘Wow, if we had Doctor Who on our books, that would be great’.”

“There are few things I can speak from experience on, but I can speak from experience on this. It’s all-year-round work doing Doctor Who – it kind of blocks out doing other things. So I think it will have to be production companies of a size and prestige that are capable of it. Everyone thinks, whenever you read about these things, that Doctor Who is a show to give new people a chance. Like hell it is. You do 20 shows before you do Doctor Who, because it’s a monster…”

Moffat’s experience comes from his role as creative director of Hartswood Films, run by his wife Sue Vertue. Among the titles Hartswood Films has produced are Sherlock, The Devil’s Hour, Dracula, Inside Man and Douglas Is Cancelled.

Might Hartswood Films, clearly possessing the requisite size and prestige, decide to compete for the Doctor Who tender? Unfortunately, the subject didn’t come up but it does sound possible. The only production company which stated its intent to compete for the Doctor Who tender so far is BBC Studios.

Moffat stated some of his hopes of how the next production company will manage Doctor Who.

“Whatever they do, I hope they do something that just makes you think, ‘Oh, it’s this now, we’re doing it slightly differently’. It’s a very robust format, so long as you stick to the basic rules, then you can mess around with that all you want.”

“I think it will get into the hands of someone new who cares about it being good. Doctor Who is an ancient structure made entirely of new elements. There’s always a constant churn of new people making it, that means you have the benefits of an ancient myth alongside the benefits of a brand-new show at the same time. New people is what Doctor Who needs constantly. You can always call the Doctor ‘the new Doctor’, and the companion ‘the new companion’, and often there’s a new monster. So, it’s the old built out of new, and that’s why the future is exciting, because it will still be the same grand old mythic structure we’ve grown up with, but every detail of it will be burnished and shiny and brand new.”

Its intent stated on 10 June, the BBC has not yet posted its Doctor Who Invitation To Tender (ITT) document on its commissioning website, though they stated this will happen this year. Moffat has some thoughts on why this process will take some time.

“It’ll be up to them what it includes,” Moffat continued. “I shouldn’t speculate. The reason the tender doesn’t just go out straight away is they will spend some time thinking about what they want Doctor Who to be, which is the right and sensible thing to do.”