THE BBC has axed medical soap Doctors after 23 years following blaming rising costs.
The cast and full crew of the lunchtime saga were today called to a full meeting where the news was broken.
It’s been a rollercoaster 12 months for Doctors, which traditionally occupied the lunchtime slot on BBC One since it first aired in 2000.
But the cast and crew were thrilled when in February 2022 bosses promoted it to a primetime, 7pm slot on BBC Two after axing Holby City.
Their joy was short-lived, though, with ratings failing to deliver in that slot and after just eight weeks it was quietly returned to its lunchtime schedule.
And now Doctors has been dropped entirely.
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Show runner Kate Oates confirmed that the latest batch of episodes to be filmed are the last as the show is no longer affordable within the broadcaster's daytime budget.
Filming will continue through to March 2024, with the final episode set to air in December.
Oates promised fans " the finale the show deserves."
A source said: “Doctors has ticked along fairly quietly around the 1.3million viewers mark for years now without any word of cancellation, but the news will still come as a shock.
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“A full cast and crew meeting was held today where the news was shared and then a lunch was laid on in the Drama Village cafe.
“Some of the cast and crew have been there since the soap first began and it really felt like a job for life, plus the soap is such a central pillar for the entire community – it employs so many contractors and freelance and is known to be a real rung on the ladders for British acting talent.
“While the impact on viewers might not seem huge, in terms of the industry this is seismic.”
A BBC statement added: "We have taken the very difficult decision to bring daytime drama Doctors to an end after 23 years. With super inflation in drama production, the cost of the programme has increased significantly, and further investment is also now required to refurbish the site where the show is made, or to relocate it to another home.
"With a flat licence-fee, the BBC’s funding challenges mean we have to make tough choices in order to deliver greater value to audiences.
"We remain fully committed to the West Midlands and all of the funding for Doctors will be reinvested into new programming in the region.
"We would like to thank all the Doctors cast and crew who have been involved in the show since 2000. We know the crucial role Doctors has played in nurturing talent, and we will work to develop new opportunities to support skills in scripted programming.
"The final episode will screen in December 2024 and we are working closely with BBC Studios to give it the finale it deserves."
The writing was on the wall after The Sun revealed that medical drama giant Casualty was having its number of episodes cut because of the cost of living crisis.
The cuts were put down to what producers called “super inflation in drama production”.
As well as a general rise in the cost of living, budgets have been forced up by the likes of Netflix.
Set in the fictional West Midlands town of Letherbridge, Doctors follows the lives of the staff of both an NHS doctor's surgery and a university campus surgery, as well as the lives of their families and friends.
Initially, only 41 episodes of the programme were ordered, but due to the positive reception, the BBC ordered it as a continuing soap opera and was filmed at the legendary Pebble Mill Studios until 2004 when it was relocated to the BBC Drama Village in Birmingham.
As of 2022, Doctors' annual average was around 1.6 million live viewers in its daytime broadcast.
The programme was nominated for and won numerous awards, with critics praising them for tackling issues that are considered to be controversial and taboo issues in British culture and social life that are typically unseen on British television.
The longest serving cast member is Adrian Lewis Morgan, who was cast in the role of Jimmi Clay in 2005.
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Alongside its regular cast, Doctors is renowned for featuring numerous extras, with series producer Peter Eryl Lloyd once estimating that at least 800 guest stars are contracted on the soap per year.
Due to the large number of actors who have made a guest appearance, Doctors gained a reputation for becoming a British actor's rite of passage.
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