Ivan Methuselah's Digi-Box Ration Book

2009 - APRIL TO JUNE

Here then are the half-time scores:

Figure 2.1 - TV, Radio and Film, week by week

Figure 2.2 - TV, Radio and Film, day by day

Overall TV Radio Film

Radio had a good run of things from May onwards, benefiting particularly from the Cricket. Recent form has been largely a result of Wimbledon on R5 shoving me over to all that scorable programming on R4. Television's brief spell of form at the turn of May is also partly sport-related: in this case the Snooker. May Day offers a particular spike, with the Snooker final joined by The Wire, Ashes to Ashes, and the Decision '79 election re-run on BBC Parliament. Unfortunately, this spike is then followed by one of the most depressing lulls we've ever had to put up with of a Spring. The red in these graphs is barely peeking above the blue of the radio. Certainly, we've been effected by the lack of Doctor Who, but we;'ve had decent runs of Robin Hood, The Wire and Ashes to Ashes by way of some sort of amends. So it's not that so much as a crash of everything else televisual. This state of affairs became particularly bad in June where if it wasn't for the likes of Springwatch and Glastonbury, television might well have become a useless living-room ornament. The big red spike on the 27th is courtesy of The Wire and Glastonbury. Meanwhile, film has had its ups and downs, doing just enough to keep us aware of it.

Figure 2.3 - Network by network, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV BBC Radio

Radio did so well this run that it has been moved back a file from last quarter and stands rather proudly against BBC TV, even outplaying it on the week commencing 13th June. 5TV made a definite recovery on last quarter's form: there's actually some blue to see this time around. ITV seems to have one good week in every three, while 4TV ticks along with its films and occasionally gives the BBC a modest run for its money.

Figure 2.4 - Digital vs Analogue, week by week

Digital Digital excl. Film4 Analogue

Let us check up on the worth of the digi-box. The first thing to notice is that this time around the impact of Film4 is very small indeed. Sure, it provides a small knuckle-full of points a week, but it seems to be playing no significant part in shaping the digital graph. The digital points are by and large coming from elsewhere along the digital spectrum. We'll explore that a little further in the next graph but first let us use this one to compare the digital-only channels' performance against the analogue five. Not good for digital is it? In only two weeks of the 13 that made up this quarter did the digital channels manage to exceed the performance of the analogues: The w/c 25th April gave us Snooker on BBCi, and some archive-raiding on B4 of the likes of Cilla and Dusty, while the w/c 16th May needed the cinematic talents of Blue Velvet and All About Eve (not to mention a lull in the analogue delights) to sneak ahead. So, on current programming, digital is looking pretty rubbish. Now lets make it even more rubbish by removing all the films from the statistics:

Figure 2.5 - Digital vs Analogue (excluding film), week by week

Digital Analogue

The digital score falls through the floor the minute films are taken out of the equation. In one week it even fails to score any points. It should be noted that the second week of digital success is now a different week to what it was before: a different lull in analogue television made lullier by the lack of a film or three. Indeed, for both digital and analogue, the loss of the motion picture means a massive reduction in the weekly points haul, but that reduction is massively more pronounced for the digital-only channels. Let us, then, look at the real talent:

Figure 2.6 - Analogue channels week by week

BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 Channel 4 five

BBC1 moves two files back on last time, representing an improvement in form brought about by Ashes to Ashes, Robin Hood, and Formula One. By far and away the success of analogue, and this should come as no real surprise, is BBC2. Even ignoring The Wire, B2 provides us with Snooker, Springwatch, and Glastonbury, and that's just the special events. C4's performance has, until recently, largely been maintained by films. This has even more-so been the case for the ITV and C5, the latter having some particularly good films but not a lot of them. Let us take a look at the film question in yet more gory detail:

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. 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 televisually, and that is the BBC. 4TV makes a token gesture in that direction but gets the vast amount of its points from films. The ITV barely contributes to television at all, and C5 is scoring solely on film alone. Splitting things up even further we get:

Figure 2.8 - Channel by channel, TV Programmes versus Film, week by week

Figure 2.7 - Network by network,
TV Programmes versus Film, week by week

BBC TV ITV TV 4TV 5TV

This shows us with some clarity which television stations of the main four networks are really delivering. Film4, not unsurprisingly, continues to be the best bet for film output. B2 is over twice as successful televisually as its nearest rival. Nice to see BBC Parliament outperforming BBC3, too. But more of that later on.

Figure 2.9 - Average performance of each weekday

Overall TV Radio Film

Here then is our average week. Tuesday is the day I'm down the pub, or so it would seem. Saturday is by far the best day, all things considered, but Monday has the best of the television, thanks to things like Stewart Lee, Ashes to Ashes and The Wire. In Our Time makes Thursdays a great day for radio, while film is strongest of a weekend. Ok. Let's take a look at the chart: