Spilsbury started his career in journalism with Visual Imagination in 1999, where he contributed to many of the company's publications, including TV Zone,[1] Starburst, Shivers, Film Review, Ultimate DVD, and Cult Times.
He also served as co-editor of the magazine's comic strip with Scott Gray, and wrote the regular Public Image column, which reports on the series' ratings, which he has continued to provide since his departure as editor.
Spilsbury has admitted to being greatly influenced by Radio Times, paying tribute to covers of the listings magazine on several occasions.
[8] In 2015 Spilsbury appeared on BBC Worldwide's Doctor Who: The Fan Show, where he was complimentary about the episode The Witch's Familiar,[9] and confirmed that the story he first remembered watching was Destiny of the Daleks [10] A further episode in 2016 saw Spilsbury and his team appear as themselves in a spoof documentary, showing the production of Issue 500 of DWM.
[11] On 12 July 2017 Panini UK announced Tom Spilsbury was stepping down as Doctor Who Magazine's editor after Issue 515 and would be succeeded by Marcus Hearn.
[12] Spilsbury's first freelance work for Inside Soap magazine was an interview with director Graeme Harper in November 2010, about the tram crash seen in the 50th anniversary episodes of Coronation Street,.
In March 2020, he took over editing Inside TV, the television section of the magazine, providing features on Red Dwarf,[14] We Hunt Together,[15] and Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow,[16] among others.
He was called on to comment on the departure of Matt Smith by BBC News on 1 June 2013, where he was asked about the controversial 'regeneration limit' of only 13 Doctors being allowed.
When asked by presenter Naga Munchetty who he thought might be in the frame, Spilsbury praised names such as Olivia Colman.
[19] The same day he was the special guest on the BBC Radio Manchester show hosted by Eamon O'Neill and Jimmy Wagg, where they discussed the arrival of the new Doctor, and Tom suggested that he might be keeping it secret because he himself had taken the job!
He was challenged by Nicholas Pegg to include a William Hartnell-era episode title into each interview without the presenter noticing.
[24] On stage, Spilsbury hosted the Doctor Who Night at Ciné Lumiere on 19 January 2013, interviewing Toby Whithouse about his writing career.
[26] In June 2018, he took part on a panel of Doctor Who experts to introduce a new audience to the 1963-89 run of the series, which was streaming on Twitch.
[34] In September 2017 Spilsbury recorded a short audio contribution to mark the official 11th YouTube anniversary of colourisation artist Stuart Humphryes.