BBC Programme Catalogue

Guest post from Gail Renard, Chair of the Guild's TV Committee:

If you don't have a deadline (otherwise you'll never be able to drag yourself away) have a look at the new BBC Programme Catalogue.

It's an experimental prototype which has not yet been publicised and, in the words of Michael Caine, not a lotta people know that. For statistical anoraks, the catalogue carries details of 981,322 BBC radio & TV programmes, dating back 75 years. It also covers 503,193 subject categories from 1,238,322 contributors (count 'em all.)

The programmes themselves are not available but, as Torchwood tells us, everything changes in the 21st century. You've got to be prepared. The BBC also state that this is a vast catalogue, but it's not comprehensive. There's no guarantee of accuracy and there are some mistakes.

The biggest one of all is, despite the fact it gives all of the info under the sun, writers as a rule are not listed. Why not drop the BBC an e-mail and let them know just how we feel about that?

Update (07/02/07): ITV Catalogue

Just in case we didn't flitter away enough writing time surfing the BBC Catalogue yesterday, here's another tip top work displacement activity. Alert reader and writer Rory Clark has informed me of the equivalent ITV website :

Alas there are no Thames shows listed, as those are owned by Fremantle, so you might actually get some work done today.