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Christmas and ABBA – what a lovely combination!

I’ve trawled through this year’s Christmas and New Year Radio Times so you don’t have to, picking out all of the films, TV and radio programmes featuring everybody’s favourite Swedish foursome.

ABBA-inspired films Mamma Mia and Muriel's Wedding are being shown alongside a healthy portion of interesting documentaries.

As Christmas is the time for repeats, the Radio 2 documentary about the 40th anniversary of ABBA's Eurovision win is wheeled out for a whopping two hours on Monday 22 December.

If you're looking for a night in watching pure ABBA, then New Year's Eve is your best bet, with the excellent Joy of ABBA starting at 9pm, followed by ABBA at the BBC, finishing at 11pm. You've then got an hour to toast the New Year before settling down for The ABBA Years on Channel 5.


Saturday 20 December

Mamma Mia
17.45-20.00, ITV3
Musical romantic comedy featuring the music of ABBA.
(repeated Wednesday 24 December 14.10-16.25)

Monday 22 December

ABBA
20.00-22.00, BBC Radio 2
Scott Mills celebrates the 40th anniversary of ABBA’s rise following their 6 April 1974 Eurovision win with Waterloo, which just five weeks later was at the top of the UK charts. With input by Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad and others.

ABBA: The Image
23.55-00.55, Channel 5
Examining the group’s costumes, album artwork and videos.

Thursday 25 December

Top of the Pops Christmas: 1978
22.30-23.30, BBC Four
Noel Edmonds presents the music show, featuring Darts, ABBA, Boney M, Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army, Squeeze, Buggles, Ian Dury, Blondie and Racey.

Muriel’s Wedding
23.05-01.15, Channel 5
Comedy drama. Deciding to escape her dysfunctional family and her small-town life, Muriel Heslop takes advantage of a blank cheque and heads off in search of adventure.

Friday 26 December

ABBA: Live in Concert
01.15-02.25, Channel 5
A 1979 performance by the Swedish quartet.

Saturday 27 December

Pick of the Pops
13.00-16.00, BBC Radio 2
An extended show in which Tony Blackburn counts three year-end charts, with the bestselling singles of 1965, 1976 and 1987, featuring The Hollies, Sonny and Cher, The Wurzels, ABBA and the Pet Shop Boys.

ABBA: When Four Became One
20.00-21.00, Sky Arts 1
Documentary examining the music careers of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad before they joined ABBA.
(repeated Sunday 28 December 05.00-06.00 & Monday 29 December 11.00-12.00)

Sunday 28 December

ABBA: Dancing Queen
20.00-21.00, Sky Arts 1
The recording of the Swedish band’s classic 1976 single.
(repeated Monday 29 December 05.00-06.00 & Tuesday 30 December 11.00-12.00)

Agnetha: ABBA and After
21.00-22.00, Yesterday
Agnetha Faltskog’s music career as both a member of the Swedish group and a solo singer. 

Wednesday 31 January

The Joy of ABBA
21.00-22.00, BBC Four
A nostaligic look at how the the pop legends popularised the sound of Swedish melancholy in the 1970s and early 80s. By adding irresistibly catchy melodies, the glamtastic quartet were able to dominate the world’s charts.

ABBA at the BBC
22.00-23.00, BBC Four
A collection of memorable performances by the melodious chart-toppers, including their first Top of the Pops appearance in 1974, and archive chat with the band.

Thursday 1 January

The ABBA Years
00.00-01.00, Channel 5
The story of the Swedish supergroup, featuring interviews with the four band members.

(The text is the Radio Times’, by the way)

And of course, the best way to sign off a festive ABBA post is this…

Bond 24 - Two Words Are Better Than One (...or Three, Four, Five or Six)

So we're just hours away from learning what the real title of Bond 24 is.

Until then, let's speculate to our heart's content and listen to outlandish suggestions, like this one from one 'caller' on Radio 4's Down The Line:

But what's in a Bond film title?

Can the name hold any clue as to how profitable it will be?

No, but let's press on regardless. Got anything better to do?

My slender point is this:

BOND FILMS WITH TWO-WORD TITLES ARE THE MOST PROFITABLE.

To arrive at this startling (and frankly pointless) conclusion, I compared all 23 films' budgets with their worldwide gross box office takings, thus working out how profitable each film was.

For example, Goldfinger's budget of $3 million and its takings of $125 million give it a profitability percentage of 4063%. Compare that with Casino Royale's budget of $150 million and its takings of almost $595 million give it a profitability percentage of 296%.

(Disclaimer: the budget-to-gross takings percentage has got progressively smaller since the 60s, so that does skew the results somewhat)

Using the table (below), I then added the percentages of films with the same number of words in their title, then divided that number by how many films there were in that group.

e.g. the four-word titles are:

• From Russia With Love (3,845%)
• You Only Live Twice (1,075%)
• Live And Let Die (1,705%)
• For Your Eyes Only (598%)

The sum total of their percentages is 7,223%, divided by four because there are four of them and, la-di-dah, the mean average is 1,806%.

So in first place were the TWO-word titles with an average profitability of 2,807%

In second place were FOUR-word titles with an average profitability of 1,806%

In third place, the ONE-word titles with an average profitability of 1,265%

And so on...

Films with FIVE-word titles had an average profitability of 736%

The one film with a SIX-word title had an average profitability of 651%

And the six films with THREE-word titles had an average profitability of 505%

So there we have it - a two word title will see Babs and Michael off the streets.

Now, is it Muff Wrangler or Muffwrangler...?

TABLE:

FILM	BUDGET ($, source IMDb)	GROSS TAKINGS ($, source IMDb)	PROFITABILITY (%)
Dr. No	1,100,000	59,600,000	5,318
From Russia With Love	2,000,000	78,900,000	3,845
Goldfinger	3,000,000	124,900,000	4,063
Thunderball	9,000,000	141,200,000	1,468
You Only Live Twice	9,500,000	111,600,000	1,075
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	7,000,000	87,400,000	1,149
Diamonds Are Forever	7,200,000	116,000,000	1,511
Live And Let Die	7,000,000	126,377,836	1,705
The Man With The Golden Gun	13,000,000	97,600,000	651
The Spy Who Loved Me	14,000,000	185,400,000	1,224
Moonraker	34,000,000	210,308,099	519
For Your Eyes Only	28,000,000	195,300,000	598
Octopussy	27,500,000	187,500,000	582
A View To A Kill	30,000,000	152,400,000	408
The Living Daylights	30,000,000	191,200,000	537
Licence To Kill	32,000,000	156,200,000	388
Goldeneye	58,000,000	351,500,000	506
Tomorrow Never Dies	110,000,000	335,332,007	205
The World Is Not Enough	135,000,000	352,030,660	161
Die Another Day	142,000,000	431,971,116	204
Casino Royale	150,000,000	594,239,066	296
Quantum Of Solace	200,000,000	575,952,505	187
Skyfall	200,000,000 (est.)	1,108,561,013	454