Fear not, Whovians: "Doctor Who" is here to stay.

BBC has denied reports made Thursday by Britain's The Sun claiming that the network will pull "Doctor Who" off the schedule following its fourth season in 2008. The reports were spurred by an anonymous tip the tabloid claimed it received that executive producer Russell T. Davies would bail from the show with the rest of his creative staff next year.

"The BBC has a long-term commitment to 'Doctor Who," a BBC Wales spokesman told the South Wales Echo through the official Wales Web site. "We are approaching the climax of a brilliant third [season] and work on [Season] 4 gets under way from next week."

The iconic program is produced by BBC Wales for broadcast on BBC One, and is Britain's highest-rated drama. Officials say the show, along with its spinoff "Torchwood" which is set in the city, has significantly boosted the profile of Cardiff.

The Sun, the largest English-language newspaper in the world with 3.1 million copies produced daily, has been the source of a lot of negative attention to "Doctor Who" in recent months, including a report just last weekend that Freema Agyeman, who plays companion Martha Jones on the series, was being fired after just a single season on the air. That led Agyeman's leading fan Web site to call for a boycott of the paper.

"There is simply no reason to read it anyway, and if this is going to be their new trend, why do you need such negativity in your day," Agyeman's Web site said in a statement. "Entire towns have successfully boycotted The Sun, we dare say a fandom can do so as well."

But does The Sun really have any benefit in putting out such negative reports on a television show? No solid proof has surfaced, but there is some circumstantial evidence that could possibly be considered by those watching the back and forth closely.

The Sun is owned by News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of News Corp., owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. He is the famed owner of publications such as TV Guide as well as the Fox television network in the United States among other major media properties. Besides what he owns in America, however, Murdoch also owns the British network Sky One as well as a 17.5 percent stake in another cable channel, ITV, both of which are direct competitors to the taxpayer-financed BBC.

Just last February, ITV premiered what some say was the network's answer to the powerhouses of "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" with the series "Primeval," which opened to an audience of 6.7 million people before slipping to 5.9 million viewers -- both well under the 8 million average viewing audience of "Doctor Who."

Despite major changes to the show -- including the replacement of both lead actors -- "Doctor Who" has exhibited tremendous staying power with audiences, even as it traverses through its third year on BBC. It has been an icon of British culture for more than 40 years, and has been repeatedly the subject of speculation and sensationalism.

The Sun did correctly report the departures of Christopher Eccleston after the first season and Billie Piper following the second season, but since has reported a slew of other so-called departures including that of David Tennant after the third season, and now Agyeman also after the third season -- claims which BBC has denied.

Fans have not been kind to The Sun following the recent reports.

"Seriously, anyone who believes this is true would have to be a bit of a moron," said a poster by the name of "Stcoop" on SciFi Channel's Doctor Who forums. "The only part of that which is true is that [Davies] will probably leave at the end of [Season] 4. [Davies] doesn't have the power to end it and the BBC [isn't] going to throw away one of their few major successes."

Another poster to the boards, however, "Von Bruno," says fans shouldn't just dismiss the story outright.

"I think one has to take these stories from The Sun with a huge grain of salt, but not completely dismiss them out of hand," he said. "They may take a kernel of legitimate truth and blow it up to foster a wild bit of speculation, but that doesn't totally mitigate the fact they started with a legitimate truth. We just have to apply ourselves, as many here have, in trying to [discover] what the truth is."

"Doctor Who" airs its third season Saturdays on BBC One, and will rerun the episodes in the United States on SciFi Channel in July.