Toronto has the most international selection. London has the most eclectic. And Los Angeles has the most. No, not restaurants. Primetime documentaries.

An analysis of one week of evening (7 to 11 p.m.) documentary programming in these three media capitals reveals distinct differences, and for an average viewer in each city (one without a satellite dish or every pay service), richness is a relative term.

l.a. offers the greatest number of channels to choose from and Toronto, with fewer channels, has almost as many documentary hours (about 100). Londoners, with barely a quarter of the hours of documentary programming as the other two cities and only four terrestrial channels, have what is, in subjective terms, the most varied and challenging programming of all.

I trolled through three tv program guides for one week in early February (ratings sweeps time in the u.s., but documentaries are virtually absent from the major networks) to crunch numbers and compare what to some might seem to be apples and oranges and snowballs.

As much as program producers in Canada scour through mip-tv catalogues and industry trade publications to glean what broadcasters want, the nightly listings of what’s on provide the most telling document of all.

In l.a., very little of the programming is local or regional (despite the city’s stranglehold on fictional movie making and its frequent depiction on screen); La-la land is almost invisible in a week of documentaries in which pharaohs, wwi tanks and parrots dominate.

Here, some programmers shout at you, scheduling documentary series and program titles that end with exclamation marks (Cyclone!, Dinosaurs!). And as the makeup artists on Babylon 5 well know, looks can be deceiving: despite the high number of hours of programming in a week, with documentaries in the l.a. area almost completely restricted to cable channels, there are lots of repeats, sometimes in the same evening.

In London, much of the programming relates to current ideas, issues and concerns, and extended series (e.g. The House, a behind-the-scenes look at the Royal Opera House) are dedicated to London landmarks and institutions.

Documentaries play key roles in the schedules of all four channels, with BBC2 devoting as many as 2.75 of the four hours available on one night to documentary films. Some of the u.k. programs would seem inconceivable for primetime in North America (e.g. BBC2’s 10-minute Trade Secrets in which ‘housekeepers share some of their tips on cleaning chores with advice on cleaning the insides of kettles’). Here, there is a willingness to deal with the quirky, the seemingly insignificant things that are not always ‘major issues.’

As usual, Toronto, home of the Raptors and the Monarchist League, is somewhere in between its American and British cousins. With access to some but not all of the u.s. services (e.g. a&e, but not its sister service The History Channel), and with some of the best of British programming available on tvontario, cbc and other domestic networks and channels, Torontonians have an international menu.

This effort is, of course, completely unscientific, representing as it does only one week out of 52. But some useful data and trends can be harvested – especially as some documentary programs or strands run year-round, or as is the case with some u.k. programs, for decades.

I chose to exclude magazine-type shows, news and current affairs reports, performances, talk shows (indeed, an entire channel in l.a., America’s Talking) and informational and instructional programs.

So what’s on?

In l.a., the schedule is dominated by history programming (about 40% of the showsand it’s usually ancient or mid-20th century), followed by science/wildlife/nature (about 30%), with arts docs accounting for less than 10%. (Only a single sports documentary was on in primetime during the week: klcs presented A Hoop Dreams Reunion, a sequel to the documentary so famous the listings editor didn’t feel it was necessary to describe the original film). In terms of running times, there is no contest: almost 80% of the shows are one hour in length.

The patterns in Toronto are not dissimilar; science/wildlife/nature leads the way with almost 40% of the programs, followed by history (about 20%). About 15% of the titles deal with social issues other than crime and about a third of the docs on view are one hour in length.

The eccentric English refuse to be pinned down; no single type of program dominates the lineup. The science/wildlife/nature category leads with 22% (although very little of that is wildlife), followed by arts and social issues at 20%, with history and law and order not far behind at 12% each. One-hour programs don’t own the airwaves either; about 55% are 60 minutes, most of the rest coming in at 30 minutes.

Perhaps these distinctions between local program schedules in three countries will disappear with the advent of 500 or more channels, and the convergence of computers, cable, telephony and television. But in a time when there are Web sites about tv programs and tv programs about Web sites, you know it’s best to just pick up a book and read.

Saturday

London: Tonight’s offerings are mostly on BBC2, and range from Scrutiny, a series looking at the varied services performed by, for example, the Parliamentary committee that counts the number of houses in Britain to Peter York’s Eighties, a series about ‘the decade in which money was seen as the solution to every problem.’

Toronto: Audiences can choose from among Jesus in Russia, a Witness documentary being repeated on Newsworld and other shows such as Travels With My Camera on Vision tv.

Los Angeles: A Canadian-made film, Plague Fighters, is showing on kcet and humans use non-verbal signals (like a tv remote control?) in The Human Animal on The Learning Channel.

Sunday

London: Lights, Camera, Action! A Century of the Cinema is on itv and BBC1’s long-running Everyman series belies its title by focusing on nuns in ‘Suburban Sisters.’

Toronto: wtn takes a literary turn with Still Waters: The Poetry of P.K. Page and nbc and Citytv present Atlantis: In Search of a Lost Continent.

Los Angeles: Discovery’s In Care of Nature wants you to know that there are ‘too many kangaroos in Australia,’ kcet repeats Parrots: Looks Who’s Talking while other channels travel to Macedonia, the North Pole, the Fossil Rim Game Farm near Dallas, India, 18th century Franceand the aforementioned Atlantis.

Monday

London: BBC2’s Hidden Empires series presents a ‘drama documentary’ about ‘the beautiful Chinese courtesan Saijinhua’ while Channel 4’s Classic Ships has the best title of the week in ‘Fish and Ships.’

Toronto: tvo’s Vista travels through automobile history; The Learning Channel dips into Beer: Pharoah’s Liquid and Vision showcases documentary profiles of musical talents in The Five Blind Boys.

Los Angeles: Discovery’s Wild Discovery introduces the golden jackals of East Africa and koce looks at Scandinavian design.

Tuesday

London: Tonight, BBC2’s The House is about the Royal Opera House’s two barmen who have been working there for more than 30 years, who hate each other and don’t speak to each other if they can avoid it.

Toronto: Discovery presents Choppers (a look at helicopters in wwii), pbs’ Frontline presents Canadian John Zaritsky’s Murder on Abortion Row and Madonna is the subject of a&e’s Biography .

Los Angeles: Not much on here tonight that Torontonians can’t also see (including the Tori Spelling drama Co-Ed Call Girl, which is ‘suggested by actual incidents’does that make it a `drama-documentary’?).

Wednesday

London: BBC2’s Video Nation screens Life, Death, God and Everything, the last in a four-part series of camcorder documentaries ‘reflecting the hopes, fears and lives of the British public while spirituality is probably in short supply in itv’s Hollywood Men, which concludes the follow-up series to Hollywood Women and Hollywood Kids.

Toronto: tvo’s The View From Here considers Northern Justice, The Learning Channel wonders about the weather and mobster John Gotti is the unsavory representative of The 20th Century on a&e.

Los Angeles: knbc and kcet go head-to-head at 8:00, with Last Feast of the Crocodiles and Creatures of the Deep battling it out for audience share (and with National Geographic and Scientific American joining in the fray).

Thursday

London: Channel 4’s Seasiders is the second in a six-part series about a Yorkshire holiday center and BBC2’s My Brilliant Career wraps up the series about people who found themselves ousted from positions of power.

Toronto: cbc’s Man Alive concludes Austin’s Story, about a man who ‘decides to end his life rather than live with his disability’ and tvo’s lineup of documentaries ranges from Fragile Nature (tonight tracking nature photographers) to the classic Maysles film about the Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter, on The Human Edge.

Los Angeles: a&e’s Voyages goes where no one has gone beforeor at least not for a very, very long time, as a ‘robot explores the great pyramids of Cheops.’ kcet’s 10 p.m. program is the late Marlon Riggs’s controversial and acclaimed Black IsBlack Ain’t, dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia among African-Americans.

Friday

London: The lightest night of the week for documentaries, with only two programs: an episode of BBC2’s pop music series Sounds of the Eighties; and BBC1’s Alison’s Last Mountain, about the first woman to reach the summit of Everest alone and without oxygen; her husband and children travel to the ‘killer mountain’ (K2) where she was killed.

Toronto: Vision tv presents The Sceptic’s Journey, in which critics of Canada’s foreign aid policies travel to India to see just how their tax dollars are being spent; and The Learning Channel’s Carriers examines a wwi aircraft carrier.

Los Angeles: One of the most varied nights of the week, with Bravo’s Masters of American Music (tonight: The Divine One: Sarah Vaughan), Lifetime’s Intimate Portrait (Maya Angelou), and klcs’ Medicine at the Crossroads.