The popular and unpopular with TBS writers 

6 February 2008 tbs.pm/853

Over the last few months we’ve been rolling out a new feature at Transdiffusion. Nicknamed “More About”, it involves putting in a link next to articles to find out similar articles on particular subject.

Now Transdiffusion is a big site so making it fully comprehensive would take forever, so for the time being, it just covers ITV companies – so every article with at least a reasonable amount of information on an ITV company – let’s say, Border, will have a link to other articles about (or partially about) Border.

All this work has an interesting, abliet unintended side-effect. With a few clicks, we can find out about the biases of the Transdiffusion authors. Out of 142 authors who have, between them, written around 1000 articles, which ITV companies tickled their fancy the most?

Top of the list comes Tyne Tees with 93 articles. This should not be hugely surprising as our City Road site offers extensive coverage of the North East ITV company, and is the pretty much the biggest section in Transdiffusion’s website.

Rediffusion comes next – again thanks to the large size of Television House – our site on the London company that helped start ITV.

Next up comes Granada with 58 articles. No special section for the Northern company but it’s position probably helped by its sheer age, it’s role in the ITV Digital debacle and the sheer fact that several of Transdiffusion’s editors come from the North West – which also helps explain ABC which comes next, followed by Lew Grade and his ATV.

Number six which brings in Carlton – an obvious hate figure for its part in the destruction of Central, Thames and ITV as we know it.

But what about the flip side? What got those authors least interested? With just six articles, there’s little old Channel, out there by itself on the Channel Islands. More “success” from the smaller parts of the UK follows with five articles and Grampian – a name now gone and replaced by STV.

Also on five is perhaps one of the most interesting ITV companies ever – the Independent Television Service for Wales and the West. Interesting it may be, but with only three months on air as a stop-gap solution created when TWW lost their franchise, there isn’t really a huge amount to say on the subject.

So which company has the rather dubious award of being written about least by TBS’s crack team of writers? Is it Derek Bately and Border-land? Or maybe GMTV (oh the scandal!) Surely it can’t be home of the wonderful Julian Simmons, UTV?

Nope. In fact it’s a slightly surprising company – Meridian.

Meridian may be owner of one of the most financially lucrative ITV franchises in the UK, but ultimately it was rather dull and inoffensive. And it comes in bottom with just four articles to its name.

The team in the South of England can expect the el-cheapo plastic trophy winging their way to offices in Southampton just as soon as we can raise the enthusiasm in the writers to buy the prize in the first place.

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