Monday 3 December 2007

BrokenTV's Telly Yule (B)Log: Day Three

Sorry about yesterday's update, everyone. Just plonking a graph onto the site and expecting everyone to be entertained was a bit lacklustre, a bit like when Sky One advertise a new episode of The Simpsons, only for it to be a clip show.

Luckily, we'll pulled out all the stops, and can promise everyone that today's update is literally five times better than yesterday's effort.

YULE (B)LOG DAY THREE: Five Pie Charts About TV Ratings

Ho, yus. Today's second and final (promise) part of our Excel rollercoaster takes a look at the three most watched shows for each Christmas week since 1998, and compares how varied each channel's output was. The single programmes named are used, apart from where a number of shows receive a single hit, so we've grouped those by genre.

Who had the most eclectic line-up of the Big Five? Well, top of the heap, winning a commemorative bag of mixed nuts...





A tie between BBC Two and Channel Four. Traditionally the two channels with less to risk over the big Christmas day schedule (often resulting in them flinging an old film or opera on), the last nine years have seen the channels wheeling out some of their big hitters. Channel Four saw Deal Or No Deal take up the top six slots of their 2006 Xmas week ratings, and for the past few years The Weakest Link has been BBC Two's main offering. Both have used The Simpsons to good effect for a short period, BBC Two until they lost it to Channel Four, Channel Four until they got a bit confused and started shifting it all around the schedules. Both have had a special Christmas Pie (chart) containing the fruits and nine different shows and/or genres, suggesting above all else that we really haven't thought this through properly.



Third on the list, Five have always had trouble finding something to fling into their Christmas schedules. While this has led to some actual hidden gold in our festive Radio Times (Jerry Sadowitz vs The People Of New York), it's only been the twin guns of Home & Away and CSI that have given them a more respectable share of viewers too full of turkey and After Eights to go out or prance around in front of Wii Sports.



Fourth place falls to 'The One' (as absolutely no-one outside of Television Centre calls it), with a possibly surprising four different shows making up their pie. While the 'comeback' episodes of ...Badly, ...Dibley and ...Horses all failed to trouble the chuckle muscles of discerning comedy fans (or, at least, us), they clearly got enough of arses on the nation's couches to be considered a big hit. And if we've got to say something nice about The Vicar Of Dibley... erm, the bit where Carol Vorderman knelt on the floor to beg for votes during the final of Britain's Favourite Sitcom made us feel a bit funny in our 'special area'.



In last place, ITV1. With it's one 'Christmas' show. That pie chart probably says enough about their efforts over each festive season, really. It'd be great if a TV Burp Christmas Special did well enough to sneak into that pie for this time next year, though.

Right, we're going to leave Excel well along for the rest of the month. No more numbers. Promise.
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