Options
How Many IQ Points Do You Drop Between Channels?
[Deleted User]
Posts: 502
Forum Member
✭✭
Some channels use more or less brain than others. Or is that just my opinion?
Say BBC1 is rated 100, just because it is first in the listings, what score would you give other channels overall?
Say BBC1 is rated 100, just because it is first in the listings, what score would you give other channels overall?
0
Comments
'Dumbing down' as you so eloquently put it can be argued that this is just a way of engaging with the largest audience possible.
IQ isn't rated as a percentage. An IQ of 100 is the average IQ, so you could say BBC 4 News and Channel 4 News viewers would likely have IQs of > 100.
IQ also relates to age, so target age group of the viewers needs to be considered as well.
So what's the average ITV2 viewer like - an 18 year old female who's blonde and has applied too much fake tan?
Spot on They probably look as though they've been Tango'ed :eek:
Yes, even documentaries are dumbed down, with flashy imagery designed to keep the attention of the X-Box generation, simple points repeated and explained multiple times, the "interesting" plot twist where a theory is set up then knocked down, human angles, and worst of all, 5 minutes of material spun out to an hour. And adverts.
But wasn't children's documentary material always pimped up? Didn't it used to feature Maggie Philbin or am I imagining that? (Anyone remember James Burke?)
Whoever said IQ is not a percentage clearly knows their maths, percentage is division of a fixed quantity and can never exceed 100. (Someone tell the footballers, please.)
While it is true that IQ is defined for a specific population group (usually age), and adjusted so each group has an average of 100, it must be possible to compare the average IQ of audiences for different channels from the same groups, just as people compare reading ages for different newspapers.
(There is an urban myth that average IQ scores for men and women are identical because questions are selected and weighted to give that result by definition. Anyone know if that is true?)
It was me who said IQ isn't a percent earlier up in the thread.
There is actually a way you can use figures like 102% but it has to involve past/future tense e.g. I put £100 in a savings account with a 2% net interest rate 12 months ago and I now have 102% of what I originally invested.
Channel 4 would be similarly low with their constant flow of freak show "documentaries".
I wouldn't ever watch Keith Lemon, but I know plenty of very intelligent people that do. If you feel a show is dumbed down, patronising or puerile to the point where it annoys you, stop watching it. Just because you dislike something or think it's patronising and unintelligent doesn't mean you should slag the audience off or call them stupid.
Hmm. So if a footballer scores 5 goals in season 1 and 25 goals in season 2, that is only a 100% increase? I always thought that German inflation was more than 100% as well.
In this case, of course BBC1 being 100 is wrong as an IQ score because IQ 100 is average, and the main Channels are most certainly aimed at people a bit below average. So take 100 as an index number rather than actual IQ
Anyway I will have a try:
BBC1 100 (for lowbrows but they do have motd wekly)
ITV 1 101 (drama is rarer, but better when they do it)
BBC2 101 (dead boring, there used to be a point but now?)
BBC3 Not a clue, never seen it
ITV2, 3 ditto
ITV4 105 (occasional football, only found by brighter people)
BBC4 115
Sky Arts 120
Film4 110
E4 110
Of course a few individual programmes merit higher scores.
Very much a mixed bag on Channel 4 with their strange remit to appeal to people not catered for by other channels. One minute the target audience is Swedish nuclear scientists, the next minute its is unemployed teenage Geordies.
Sky Arts 120? Many programs are about esoteric subjects, but few exercise the brain cells and too many are about popular culture. A profile of glam rock band Poison? A tribute to Frank Sinatra? Tony Hawk meets the director of Iron Man? Duran Duran? Professor Green at the Isle of White?
Since many documentaries are actually fairly moronic, and some silly sitcom can require a fair amount of mental awareness.
Much of BBC4 programming is quite low level from an intellectual point of view, it has high snob-value programming most of the time.
Of the mainstream channels I would say BBC1 is the very dimmest, CH4 runs it close however.
So, basically, if you don't like it, it isn't "proper culture"?
Yes, this entire thread is full of snobs, who don't understand how anybody could possibly enjoy something they think is unintelligent. Unless, of course, that person is stupid...
That drivel is on ITV2. I caught a bit of it once while channel surfing. Honestly it has to be worst lowest common denominator TV I've ever seen. It seems to be aimed at vacuous fake-tanned airheads with hardly any brain cells. And don't get me started on that Peter Andre thing. I'd rather eat live bees washed down with sulphuric acid while being forced to use Windows Vista than watch a single minute of his riveting (not) life.
Channel 4 started to lose it's perceptiveness around 2000 when it introduced reality TV shows to it's schedule. I remember when they broadcasted cutting dramas and documentaries like 'Cutting Edge' and 'Dispatches.'
Both 'Cutting Edge' and 'Dispatches' are still on air, and in primetime. Both are fairly well advertised as well...
I think that for my taste you are right about Sky Arts 1 in peak time, it overdoes the pop music. But I don't much like pop music. Besides, I also don't watch them. Remember that you can not judge a programme by the title or subject.
Also, I am fairly sure that you would agree with me that the average IQ of viewers of Sky Arts 2 is a bit higher than those watching reruns of Top of the Pops, even now that they have edited out some of the presenters. Anyway I was trying to answer the question. If you did not like my try, have a go yourself.