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BrokenTV’s Sitcom Swingometer Spectacular! Part 2: Drop the Dead Donkey, Peep Show and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

So, for anyone who missed yesterday’s Part One of this new series, here’s the premise. What would happen if a load of characters from old British sitcoms were allowed to (a) exist in real life, (b) were all still alive today, and (c) decided to cast a vote in the 2024 UK General Election? Well,…
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BrokenTV’s Sitcom Swingometer Spectacular! Part 1: Dad’s Army, Hancock, Are You Being Served?

Or, if you prefer, I Asked Two AI Programs How Classic British Sitcom Characters Would Vote in the 2024 General Election. The results may surprise you. Not going to lie, they surprised me. So, there’s a General Election about to happen in the UK (don’t forget to register if you haven’t already, and remember that…
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So, Has the BBC Run Out of Ideas?
Because it does kind of seem that way, doesn’t it? The schedules dominated by the same old programmes that seem to have been kicking around forever. But – is that really the case? Or, with the main BBC channels being the home for as wide an audience as possible, isn’t it just that the BBC’s…
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The Most-Broadcast BBC Programmes of All-Time: Post-Match Statstravaganza

Okay, now the Big Final Reveal is out of the way, and we’ve identified the two programmes broadcast more than any other on the main BBC channels, let’s get granular. After all, with so much lovely data to build statistical sandcastles with, we can pull that programme information into some other shapes too. For example,…
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Play School: A Look Through the Redux Window (Take Two*)

(*Fingers crossed, first attempt to publish resulted in a blank post and WordPress deleting the contents of my draft. So, fingers crossed. Apologies to email subscribers who received a mostly-empty email last night.) Who wants a bunch more information about Play School? You know you do. But first, a brief aside. Funny thing, research. When…
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The Two Most-Broadcast BBC Programmes of All-Time: The Grand Final

If this blog has a catchphrase, it must be “that took a lot longer than I’d expected”. And this one did. Not so much as down to getting together a programme history of the show in question, but more to do with checking the broadcast histories of the Top Two programmes. And O! The excitement.…
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The 100 Most-Broadcast BBC Programmes Of All Time: Pre-Reveal Recap

Firstly, Merry Christmas! We’re nearly there, and things are very tight between the top two. How tight? Well, so damn close I’ve actually felt compelled to carry out a full recount of their respective broadcast totals, as there are just seven broadcasts between them. One programme was shown 10,575 times, the other 10,582 times. So,…
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“He Might be Slightly Dodgy, But a Gooner He Ain’t” – The 3rd Most-Broadcast BBC Programme of All-Time

Bronze medal time! But first, here’s something that you may well float your retro TV boat if you’re enjoying this rundown. Unstoppable word machine Ben Baker’s latest book – The Dreams We Had As Children – is out now, and it’s a bit of a cracker for anyone who grew up (or old) with a…
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“Available to Anyo.e” – The 4th Most Broadcast BBC Programme of All-Time

Here we go. After yesterday’s video version, here’s the good old Web 1.0 write-up for… 4: Pages from Ceefax (Shown 6491 times, 1983-2000) Well, here’s a controversial one. Partly because you could claim it’s not really a programme, partly because you could claim it should be classed as ‘news’, and partly because pages from Ceefax…
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The 4th Most-Broadcast BBC Programme of All-Time: Video Special!

Ho, yes. We’re closing in on the top of the list, so I’ve made a video on the programme in fourth place. Everyone likes it when people say “hey, watch this video I’ve made”, don’t they? For those who don’t (waves to 97% of the population), I’ll put the text version online tomorrow. Which has…
