Ivan Methuselah's Digi-Box Ration Book

2008 - JULY, AUGUST & SEPTEMBER

Last quarter's graphs seemed half decent, so we'll stick with them:

Figure 3.1 - TV, Radio and Film, week by week

Figure 3.2 - TV, Radio and Film, day by day

Overall TV Radio Film

This quarter got off to a fairly strong start, week three being the first of the year to exceed 50pts. This great score was almost entirely due to film, which clocked up 15pts on 13th July alone (more in a single day than it achieves in most weeks). Of course, some sort of film renaissance is to be expected six months into the year: all those 1pt films shown in January have served their exemption from the chart (see rule 4.06) and can now score again. But in this case the dramatic surge was down to a specific season: namely the Kubrick run on More4. It was followed immediately by a selection of Bergmans on Film4 (some of which are still on the video and have yet to impact upon the chart). Film remained the dominant force throughout the run, but radio had a great time of it too. Indeed, the first two weeks saw radio scoring more points than TV and film, while on 9th August, all three formats scored an equal 9pts each. There is a reason for radio's uncharacteristic strength over the three month period, or rather a number of related reasons: throughout the summer, Radio 5 was busy with such things as Wimbledon and the Olympics, and this coupled with presenters holidaying and being replaced by idiots led to me listening to more Radio 4 than might otherwise be the case, presenting me with a wide range of eligible programming in a space otherwise occupied by the longer and exempt news slots or R5. The Olympics also gave me an excuse to score Five Live Drive under a technicality. A temporary change in my access to radio during the summer also assisted the medium. Film scored an overall total of 190. Radio managed just over half of this on 99. In a dramatic twist of fortunes, 99 was also the total score for TV. Indeed it is fair to say that TV has had a pretty dismal run: a score of 150 would normally be considered low (it scored 152 over these three months last year). But then this is an Olympic year and I'm no great devotee of the Olympics. The great archive raiding on B4 this week falls out of the scope of this review and counts instead towards the October - December run.

Figure 3.3 - Network by network, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV BBC Radio

It's honours pretty much even between BBC and 4TV this run (BBC TV scored 115 to 4TV's 97). That equation can partly be summed up by Kubrick vs The Olympics. BBC Radio is an oppressive presence on the right of the graph for reasons already outlined above. ITV has been pretty strong this quarter, and can thank the Formula 1 for that. As for C5, it's still living off films alone, but not nearly to the same degree of success as 4TV.

Figure 3.4 - Digital vs Analogue, week by week

Digital Analogue

Every three months we ask the question: is a digibox a worthwhile purchase? This run the answer is clearly yes, certainly as far as July and August are concerned (that's Kubrick again, and the repeats of Christopher Eccleston's Doctor Who on BBC3). In September, however, digital is less wonderful, and BBC2's series of one-off dramas (plus the likes of the F1 and other staples) helps analogue regain its dominance.

Figure 3.5 - Analogue channels week by week

BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 Channel 4 five

No surprise to see BBC2 doing most of the hard work for analogue. But a Powell & Pressburger week on C4 at the start of September helps it to a commanding one-off high of 10pts.
There's little much to choose between BBC1 and ITV1 while C5 has a pretty dreadful run save a few weeks of films near the end.

Figure 3.6 - Network by network, TV Programmes versus Film, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV

This eye-bleeding graph demonstrates the weight of film per network on a week for week basis. The higher up from zero, the more TV programming there is; the lower the stalactites, the greater the points-quantity of movie-output. Unsurprising therefore that 4TV should take up the bottom two thirds of the graph, with the BBC dominating the TV aspect. C5 has only one TV item (House), with the rest of its material being filmic. ITV is almost balanced, but only almost.

Figure 3.7 - Average performance of each weekday

Overall TV Radio Film

A simple and pleasingly chunky graph that gives us a peek at an average week. Saturday is the best day to stay in, thanks almost entirely to films. Wednesday returns to being the best day for a visit to the pub. Monday offers the best telly while Friday (thanks to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo) is a day of radio.

Figure 3.8 - BBC TV, channel by channel, week by week

BBC1 BBC2 BBC3 BBC4 Overall

As the only broadcaster with any meaningful internal competition, the BBC gets its own graph, and here it is. The most noteworthy aberration in this graph compared with previous incarnations is that massive chunk of blue in the middle. That's BBC3 of all things. Frighteningly, it towers over all else, including BBC2. "Has something gone wrong with Ivan's spreadsheet?" I hear you ask. No, rather it is the concentrated repetition of the Christopher Eccleston series of Doctor Who broadcast over four weeks. Wimbledon and the Olympics have a marked effect on BBC2, which is otherwise fairly healthy. B1 keeps poking up every now and again, be it with a film or with some other sundry light ents project. But there's a hole here: a B4 shaped hole. For the first month of the run B4 functioned ok, but then it just died. It was as if everyone at BBC4 just went off on holiday, but forgot to raid the archive for something good to put on while they were away. It was just a vacuum. A sudden surge of activity in the last week of September could not save it, because that week (ending as it did in October) is being carried over to the next run. Three months ago, BBC4 was firmly in the lead as far as our channel by channel analysis goes. Clearly it won't be this time, but how far has it fallen? Let's have a look and see: