Ask a streaming executive a yes-or-no question, get a horoscope.
At the Edinburgh TV Festival, session moderator Boyd Hilton put it directly to Netflix Vice President of Content Anne Mensah: would Netflix go after the Doctor Who tender?
Mensah declared her love for the show before offering this, via Wales Online: “Anything that stays brilliant this long will have many, many lives.”
UPDATE: Stargate star Michael Shanks has fired back at Amazon over its Doctor Who comments, responding “Really?? Do they?” three months after Amazon MGM canceled Martin Gero’s Stargate series. Netflix, meanwhile, has since given a straight answer, with Anne Mensah telling Radio Times that the show belongs on the BBC.
‘Many, many lives’ is not an answer
Notice what she actually predicted: the franchise survives. Notice what she didn’t say: that Netflix will have anything to do with it.
That’s not a no, either.
Netflix knows the brand, having served as the U.S. streaming home of the revival for years before the library started bouncing from Amazon to HBO Max to its current home at AMC+.
A 60-year sci-fi institution with a built-in global fanbase is exactly the kind of IP streamers fight over.
Two streamers, same script
Mensah isn’t freelancing here.
Prime Video’s senior commissioner for UK scripted, Oliver Jones, got the same question at the same festival and opened the exact same way, declaring his love for the show before adding, via Radio Times: “we’d welcome any conversations.”
The pattern from both: praise the brand, commit to nothing. Which is what circling looks like. The streamers want it known they’d take the call without being on the hook for a bid in a process that doesn’t technically exist yet.
Because that’s the state of play: the BBC announced in June it would put the show out to competitive tender, meaning production companies will pitch for the right to make it, and that tender still hasn’t opened.
No timeline has been announced, and insiders say the show won’t return until 2028 at the earliest.
Rumors said Amazon wanted the whole library
Amazon’s soundbite also comes with more history attached than Netflix’s.
Prime Video was the exclusive U.S. streaming home of the modern series from 2016 until the library moved to HBO Max in 2020, so the company knows firsthand what the franchise is worth.
As we reported back in March 2025, rumors claimed Amazon was sniffing around while the Disney+ deal was falling apart, and that Amazon wanted the entire Doctor Who library as part of any deal, something the BBC was said to be dead against.
The same report claimed Bad Wolf, which is owned by Sony, had held talks with other companies about funding the show if Disney walked, with Sony’s close relationship with Amazon making the retail giant the name to watch.
Bad Wolf is now gone entirely, which closes that backdoor. If Amazon wants Doctor Who, the tender is the only way in.
The catch: winning the tender doesn’t come with the shows themselves.
The BBC retains all IP in the franchise, BBC Studios keeps global distribution and licensing, and the modern run is already locked up at AMC+ in the U.S. Amazon could end up making new Doctor Who without being able to stream the old Doctor Who next to it.
The only new Doctor Who in production is a cartoon
Reports at the time of the tender announcement said Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf chose to skip a standalone Christmas special rather than bridge the gap, a decision framed as protecting the show’s long-term future.
Meanwhile, the only new Doctor Who actually moving is the CBeebies preschool series. Blue Zoo Animation has won that contract, with 52 episodes ordered across two seasons and production starting this year, the first time the Whoniverse has been turned into an animated show for preschool viewers.
So if Mensah is right that Doctor Who has many lives left, someone still has to pay for the next one. The only names on the record so far are BBC Studios and Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment. The streamers, for now, are just sending flowers.
For what it’s worth, Rose Tyler recently said she’s not the next Doctor, and David Tennant did leave the possibility open for a return.
For the tender, the timeline, and everyone circling, here’s what’s next for Doctor Who.
