CBeebies Presentation

This thread is fantastic!
What is your code for Sky Vegas I wonder?
B6 is a indeed a strange handle for CBeebies. You could probably argue that it was BBC 4, I guess, seeing as it comes from Network Control 4 and is the same feed as BBC FOUR, just during the day. Hmmm.

Gradually perusing the old DS thread, it seems they had more or less exactly the same discussion last year.

One thing I can get my head around in the 'coding' scheme (apart from it having no obvious purpose that is) is how the BBC channels are B1-B8, ITV channel I1-I5, but C4 and C5 are just C4 and C5 - shouldn't the prefix be different as they're different broadcasters? Also how the BBC numbers are assigned based on their DTT order, but Sky Three is 'S3' even though it's the first Sky channel on DTT.

Furthermore, the BBC channels have to be numbered 1-8 despite half of them having a descriptive name rather than extending numerically, but the UKTV channels don't have this, with UK History being 'UH'.

Aswell as being anally pedantic and of no obvious purpose, this scheme also makes no sense, does it Star Attraction?

No, no, no, you haven't been paying attention, have you! C4 is 4C and C5 is 51 for added confusion/pointlessness.

Spot on with the scheme making no sense though

TT, what's all this crap about setting up threads?

That's at least 6 minutes of your life you'll never see again. You do realise that, cwathen?

Hmm, Tumble Tower, your forum cred will tumble down the drain if you don't stop opening threads for no readily apparent reason within thirty seconds. And you do seem to be overly obsessed with CBeebies.

*presses button, hums Countdown theme tune* Did-did-dididdly, did-did-dididdly, did-did-dididdly, did-did-dididdly...

OK, here goes. The way my coding system works IS logical. There are TWO parts really, a broadcaster code and channel code .

So far, I have devised broadcaster codes for several broadcasters:
PSB broadcasters
B = BBC
I = ITV
4 = Channel 4 Television
5 = Channel 5 Broadcasting

Other broadcasters
D = Discovery
E = EMAP (for some forthcoming codes I've yet to issue)
F = Flextech (now replaced with V for Virgin Media)
G = God channels
M = MTV Europe
N = Nickelodeon (for some forthcoming codes I've yet to issue)
Q = QVC
S = Sky
U = UKTV
X = Television X channels
Z = Zee channels

For each broadcaster, a channel code must be assigned to each of that broadcaster's channels. Take BBC. There are EIGHT BBC TV channels in the UK. Remember, that's what Auntie said in the Freeview trailers late 2002. Here are the channel codes for the eight BBC TV channels.

BBC television channels available in the UK
1 = BBC1
2 = BBC2
3 = BBC3
4 = BBC4
5 = CBBC
6 = CBeebies
7 = BBC News 24
8 = BBC Parliament

Also, the BBC has several national radio networks, and here are the channel codes for those.

BBC radio channels
R1 = BBC Radio 1
R1X = 1Xtra BBC
R2 = BBC Radio 2
R3 = BBC Radio 3
R4 = BBC Radio 4
R5 = BBC Radio 5 Live
R5X = BBC 5 Live Sports Extra
R6 = BBC 6 Music
R7 = BBC 7 (as in radio)
R8 = BBC Asian Network
R9 = BBC World Service

Now, in each case you combine the broadcaster code (B for BBC), with the appropriate channel code to get the full code.

B + 1 = B1 -> BBC1
B + 2 = B2 -> BBC2
B + 3 = B3 -> BBC3
B + 4 = B4 -> BBC4
B + 5 = B5 -> CBBC
B + 6 = B6 -> CBeebies
B + 7 = B7 -> BBC News 24
B + 8 = B8 -> BBC Parliament
B + R1 = BR1 -> BBC Radio 1
B + R1X = BR1X -> 1Xtra BBC
B + R2 = BR2 -> BBC Radio 2
B + R3 = BR3 -> BBC Radio 3
B + R4 = BR4 -> BBC Radio 4
B + R5 = BR5 -> BBC Radio 5 Live
B + R5X = BR5X -> BBC 5 Live Sports Extra
B + R6 = BR6 -> BBC 6 Music
B + R7 = BR7 -> BBC 7 (as in radio)
B + R8 = BR8 -> BBC Asian Network
B + R9 = BR9 -> BBC World Service

Do you now understand how I built up my set of codes for the BBC family of TV and radio channels? Surely if I've used 1 to 4 for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC4, it's only logical to continue using numbers 5 to 8 for the remaining four BBC TV channels (CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News 24, BBC Parliament), is it not?

It's the same for ITV channels:
Broadcaster code: I = ITV

Channel codes:
1 = ITV1
2 = ITV2
3 = ITV3
4 = ITV4
5 = CITV
6 = ITV Play

By combining the broadcaster code (I = ITV) with the relevant channel code, you get the full code for each channel:
I + 1 = I1 -> ITV1
I + 2 = I2 -> ITV2
I + 3 = I3 -> ITV3
I + 4 = I4 -> ITV4
I + 5 = I5 -> CITV
I + 6 = I6 -> ITV Play

Of course, ITV Play no longer exists. I could nonetheless reuse code I6 if ITV launch another new channel.

During the summer and autumn of last year, I pondered over what to do about Sky, Discovery, UKTV etc. Come Christmas, I found that it would not always be possible to have one letter followed by one numeral. For the UKTV family of channels, I decided to do the following:

UB = UKTV Bright Ideas
UDo = UKTV Documentary
UDr = UKTV Drama
UF = UKTV Food
UG1 = UKTV Gold
UG2 = UKTV G2 (appropriate since this was formerly called UK Gold 2)
UH = UKTV History
UP = UKTV People
US = UKTV Style
USG = UKTV Style Gardens

See, they all start with broadcaster code U. I then followed suit with codes for the Sky channels and Discovery channels.

To answer your question about S3 = Sky Three, when that's the FIRST Sky channel of three on Freeview (Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News) - the point is that Sky One and Sky Two ACTUALLY DO exist on Sky Digital but not Freeview. The Sky family of codes is based around its home platform, Sky Digital. The upshot of this is you get the following:

S1 = Sky One (available on Sky Digital but not DTT)
S2 = Sky Two (available on Sky Digital but not DTT)
S3 = Sky Three (available on Sky Digital AND DTT)

So you see, Sky Three still has to be S3 on Freeview, even though Sky One and Sky Two don't exist there.

There are several other sub families of channels in Sky family, e.g. movies range and sports range. I've managed to sort that out, see note 395 on this page

A real problem arose with Channel 4 and Five. In the earliest days (1986) I called Channel 4 I2 (it was effectively the ITV2 of the time, though it took until the digital era for the real ITV2 to appear), but later coded it as C4. When Channel 5 launched, that was C5. But as you say, that implies Channel 4 and Five are by the same broadcaster, when they are not. To solve the problem within the rules of my formula, back in February this year I came up with the following:

Channel 4 Television - broadcaster code 4
The individual channel codes:

C = Channel 4
M = More 4
E = E4
F = Film4

Putting these together, you get

4C = Channel 4
4M = More 4
4E = E4
4F = Film4

The trouble is, the generally and readily accepted shorthand for Channel 4 since its launch in November 1982 seems to have been C4.

Channel 5 Broadcasting - broadcaster code 5
Individual channel codes

1 = Five (Freeview 5)
U = Five US (Freeview 35)
L = Five Life (Freeview 36)

Put these together to get:
51 = Five (code pronounced five one)
5U = Five US
5L = Five Life

However, for Five (launched March 1997) a simpler code would be just 5 on its own.

So you see, these codes do follow a logical system. I know some of them are a little tricky, e.g. the Virgin channel codes such as VB1 for Bravo, V1 for Ftn, but once you learn it all, it becomes self explanatory. They DO have their uses, for texting on a mobile, in conversation it's surely quicker to say B1 instead of BBC1, B6 instead of CBeebies or UG1 instead of UKTV Gold. I appreciate 4E is as long as E4 to say (albeit reversed), but that's the logic of the system for you.

This is just MAD! It's more easier to remember the TV station name, then all these codes.

Can't you call TV channel's by their original name rather then wasting time making up codes for them?

Please TT, I may be able to understand better if you explain why these codes are neccesary.

OK it started back in autumn 1986. At least, so the opening gambit to my DS thread would have you believe.

Actually it has its roots further back in time than that.

Going Back In Time To The Moment
The date is some Friday about half way through spring term 1981 (Feburary 1981).

I was at primary school. My class was watching a BBC Schools programme on BBC2. One which was originally scheduled for transmission on BBC1 the first week of term (January 1981, just after Xmas), but for some reason wanted, so Auntie rescheduled it for the said Friday morning in Feburary 1981 on BBC2.

Someone came into the class, and the teacher started talking to that person. I heard her say something, which (to my ears anyway) went

"It's on B2 today" .

At least, that's what I thought she said. My interpretation was: It's (the programme we were watching) on B2 (BBC2) today. I do remember there being a noticeable pause between the B and the 2 though.

I never forgot that moment

Going forwards a few years - Autumn term 1986
I was now at secondary school, and still couldn't forget the aforementioined moment. By then there were four channels:

BBC1
BBC2
ITV
Channel 4 (or S4C in Wales)

It dawned on me, I could add to what I thought I heard in 1981. If B2 = BBC2, then it should be B1 = BBC1. Regarding the IBA channels, how about

I1 = ITV1
I2 = Channel 4 / S4C.

After all, on many sets at the time, the third button was marked ITV1 (commonly tuned to the ITV region of stronger signal strength you could get) and the fourth button was marked ITV2, which was normally tuned to S4C in Wales or Channel 4 elsewhere. Additionally the ITV companies had to pay a Fourth Channel Subscription to Channel 4 (or S4C in the case of HTV Wales). So you see at the time, Channel 4 or S4C was to all intents and purposes the ITV2 of the day, so I2 was a logical code for it. However it took until the digital era for the real ITV2 to launch.

At the time another boy in my class seemed miffed at my codes. When I said B2, he said BBC2. He was really confused by I2 for Channel 4.

By the nineties, I realised C4 would be a more appropriate code for Channel 4 (but overlooked S4C). When Channel 5 launched, C5 would be the code to use.

The Dawn Of Digital
When BBC News 24 launched, I wondered what I'd do about a code for that. Then along came BBC Choice, BBC Knowledge and BBC Parliament. I was miffed as to why BBC Choice was so called, I'd have thought they'd have called it BBC3, since some colour sets as far back as 1982 had a button marked BBC3, implying a BBC3 was to launch sometime. I heard a rumour a BBC3 would launch as early as 1986. Eventually BBC4 replaced BBC Knowledge, and a year later BBC3 replaced BBC Choice. Finally the appearance of the two BBC kids' channels created a further problem.

To resolve that, come early 2006, I acknowledged that there were now eight BBC TV channels, so I decided to code them in the current sequence, refer back to my previous post. I then launched my thread "TV Channels - A Shorthand Code" on Digital Spy Forums in February 2006, a quarter of a century after it all started with what I thought my teacher said.

So you see, going back to grass roots level, the channel coding wasn't my idea at all. It all started with me having thought I heard someone else say B2 thinking it meant BBC2 way back in February 1981. I then, five and a half years on expanded it, and it took until 2006 for me to go public with it and bring it up to date to suit the digital era.

Fascinating read that, really was. However, I still don't understand why us, TV Forumers, should revert from using simple channel names to complicated codes. Don't give me reasons why its not complicated, I just want my question answered, and preferably in no more than 3 lines.