Ivan Methuselah's Digi-Box Ration Book

2009 - JANUARY TO MARCH

And so we are already a quarter of the way through the year. What have we got to show for it?

Figure 1.1 - TV, Radio and Film, week by week

Figure 1.2 - TV, Radio and Film, day by day

Overall TV Radio Film

Radio had a good run of this first quarter, often out-doing television (with television helping out in that area by often being pretty dreadful). TV's adequate run in January owed a good deal to Snooker. Its resurgence in the last week is thanks to our daily dose of The Wire. The vast majority of activity has been cinematic: there's a natural spike at New Year, but also at the turn of March (helped only in part by a frankly sub-standard Hitchcock week on BBC 4).

Figure 1.3 - Network by network, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV BBC Radio

When film is scoring high, Film4 usually has a hand in it, so no surprise to see a lot of green on this graph (including a big spike at the New Year). BBC TV does ok through January, thanks mainly to the Snooker, there's a small spike at the start of March, thanks in part to the Hitchcock run. And then comes The Wire in this last week. 5TV has had a pretty dreadful run of things, not scoring a single point within the scope of our run (it managed 2pts from the Christmas Lectures on the 1st and 2nd of January which fall outside of the 13 weeks we're analyzing here) all the way until March. That's two whole months of nothing, which is pretty dreadful, even for Channel 5. The ITV on the other hand, despite being on its uppers, has had a very good run of things. It still has a good portfolio of films, and it's been making use of them. It also has Harry Hill, who has lent ITV1 some stability over recent weeks.

Figure 1.4 - Digital vs Analogue, week by week

Digital Digital excl. Film4 Analogue

How are the digital channels performing? The answer would appear to be "poorly". Taking Film4 out of the picture, the yellow line only crosses the green twice and then almost barely. On the week commencing 14th March there was hardly anything on the digital channels at all: the point there was scored by a single crust repeat of Harry Hill's Shark Infested Custard on CITV of all channels. Still, most of the time digital is adding a good 10pts a week to the score. If we remove films from the picture entirely things look like this:

Figure 1.5 - Digital vs Analogue (excluding film), week by week

Digital Analogue

The amount of points being gathered each week is pretty much halved when films drop out of the equation. Analogue again has the upper hand, losing out only once (first week of February -- frankly the only week when BBC4 was on form). To lose digital entirely would be to lose three or four points each week but those points are narrowly in the minority when considering the weight of television as a whole.

Figure 1.6 - Analogue channels week by week

BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 Channel 4 five

Those mighty analogue channels. C5 not so mighty, excepting two weeks of decent films at the start of March. B1 did the barest it could, and managed to fall off the screen altogether for most of March. C4 and I1 have had a fairly healthy quarter in their terms. Most of the hard work though has been courtesy of B2: a strong January bolstered by Snooker and a strong last week of March thanks to The Wire. That said, there's quite a lull hiding behind that yellow tower. It has hardly been the best of times.

The table opposite breaks down film and television programming for each network over the course of the quarter. Television programming is in the positive while film runs in the negative of the y-axis. In an ideal world, each network should stretch both high and deep as it strives for quality in both directions. Alas, only one network really does any stretching at all televisually, and that is, rather unsurprisingly, the BBC. 4TV accrues much the same number of points in the opposite direction: it is to film what the BBC is to television. 5TV is just embarrassing. We can do the same for each channel:

Figure 1.8 - Channel by channel, TV Programmes versus Film, week by week

Figure 1.7 - Network by network,
TV Programmes versus Film, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV

From this graph we can see that BBC2 is by far the best channel for TV content, followed a little way behind by BBC4. Channel 4 lies in third place. For films, Film4 has a massive lead, followed by Channel4, with ITV1 in third. Taking the bars as a whole one can fairly easily deduce the order of this quarter's final chart. But first another graph:

Figure 1.9 - Average performance of each weekday

Overall TV Radio Film

On an average week, radio helps Saturday to being the best day of the digi-box. Sunday follows close behind, with a better helping of all things television including the best of the film output. TV's best day is Monday, thanks to the likes of University Challenge and Stewart Lee, while Kermode and Mayo ensure that radio outplays both film and television of a Friday. I'm still down the pub on Wednesdays.