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I only blogged on the Jerry Springer thing because somebody asked me to and couldn’t be bothered to watch it myself. So I don’t know how blasphemous it was, but then I’m not against a bit of blasphemy. However, some the stats that have been bandied about caught my eye. First off there’s the 50,000 complaints. This is arrived at by adding the 45,000 who contacted the BBC to the 7,500 who contacted Ofcom (okay, that’s 52,500 but we media times like to round). But contacting the BBC isn’t the same as complaining. I contacted the BBC in support of broadcast and received a standard reply as if I were a complainant, so that figure’s inflated. And the 8,000 swear words? Well that’s only true if you multiply by 27 each time the chorus sing.
Evangelical blogger Adrian Warnock, claimed the high complaint level was thanks to Christian bloggers. Yet his own straw poll reveals just seven blogs against broadcast, with eighteen in favour. He doesn’t say how he did his poll and he doesn’t include this blog, even though my earlier post was trackbacked to make sure he knew about it. Warnock claims his analysis ties in with the BBC’s break down of telephone contact post-broadcast. So using the complainants’ figures, implies the 52,500 contacts included just 14,700 complaints and 37,800 messages of support. My media maths tells me that a victory for Springer of 40,000 to 14,000.
Anyway. Here’s some more spin: Springer beats Anglicanism in the popularity ratings. Around three per cent of the population tuned in, while only two per cent of Mancunians could be bothered to go to an Anglican service over Xmas.
PS Mr Batty at the ever comical Adam Smith Institute says we wouldn’t have these problems if the BBC was private; like Sky.
