Phil's Mighty Database

Background
To supplement our growing collection of information, we are very happy to introduce a Wiki version of surely the largest single database of John Peel tracklistings currently available. Bringing together listings from the BBC, Lorcan's pioneering tracklistings site and other sources, this is the result of many years of work by Peel Newsgroup member Phil Edwards,.

While Phil's data partly overlaps that already on the John Peel Wiki, the aim of having both sources available via this site is maximize the volume of information available in one place. In addition, possible contradictions or inaccuracies can be pointed out by Wiki users, via the Discussion tab at the top right of each page, for the greatest degree of accuracy possible.

Due to the size of Phil’s mighty database, the Wiki version had to be divided up and spread over three pages. You can use the search function of your browser for particular inquiries or just browse by scrolling.

The John Peel Wiki wishes to express huge thanks to Phil and Lorcan for their kind support and cooperation to allow this version of Phil’s database to appear here. For a list of contributors to Lorcan’s site, please see here.

Please be aware that these pages may take few moments to load.


 * PMDB 1 (test) 1976-95
 * PMDB 2 (test) 1996-2000
 * PMDB 3 (test) 2001-4

The three pages are in testing until the new year. Please let us know your thoughts on how they can be improved, via the Discussion tab at the top right of this page.

Background

(Phil: adapted from Peel Newsgroup message #8271, 4 Nov. 08)

Lorcan’s site was the starting point of a mammoth project I began eight years ago of creating a master listings database. I resumed the task this summer.

Lorcan’s site was based on downloads of JP Listings from Teletext. I did a few when he couldn't manage.

His site alone consists of 16,500 tracks. I painstakingly imported these into my database line by line (each track being a permutation of two, three or four fields)

To this I added the BBC website track listings (10,000 tracks), which I extracted programmatically after running HTMSTRIP (which I believe our very own Martin Wheatley supplied me with). This first converted these files to text files.

Plus various other sources. The database currently stands at 45,000 tracks, from Dec 1976 - Dec 2004.

Wiki version

Phil initially published his database (“still nowhere near complete”) in Excel form (tblJPListingsMaster.xls), which was made available in the files section of the Peel Newsgroup homepage on 11 Nov. 08. This can still be accessed if you are a member of the newsgroup.

With the agreement of Phil and Lorcan, work started on creating a Google Docs version of the database that could be accessed and searched via the John Peel Wiki. This hasn’t proved easy. Due to the huge size of Phil’s original file, it was reluctantly decided to split up the database into smaller pieces, roughly by year. To speed up loading, these files are now available over three pages.

It is hoped to keep the files updated with any extra information added by Phil.

Once again, many thanks to Phil and Lorcan!