Christmas 2015

I'm not entirely sure that that is true, I expect many people do remember what was on Christmas Day last year. The might not remember the film, or the early evening animation or Paul o'Grady dogs, but they will remember the soaps, Downton, Doctor Who, Strictly and Mrs Brown.


Regarding the similarities of the schedule year in year out, whereas you point out individual shows in the past have had continuous appearances, has there ever been a situation where the same batch of many programmes have had continuous appearances? Surely Morecambe and Wise or Only Fools were not teamed up with the same programmes throughout those long runs.

I guess you could quote the Doctor Who regeneration episode in 2010 - 2nd part of a 2-parter that began on Christmas Day, of course, but that's a recent example of the BBC using New Year's Day as a slot for a massive piece of event television.

Well, neither have Doctor Who and Strictly, those and 'stEnders have been the only long runners. In the last decade we've had The One Ronnie, The Royle Family, Absolutely Fabulous, Michael McIntyre, Gavin and Stacey, Come Fly With Me, Catherine Tate, Call The Midwife, The Green Green Grass, Wallace and Gromit, and loads more. Yes, some programmes are the same, but that's been the same in every era. And not everyone watches every programme, and also they're different shows. You'd have a point if they were all soaps or something, but one's light entertainment, one's sci-fi and one soap. Something for everyone.

Yes, the last Gavin and Stacey was on that day as well, and last year the last ever Miranda. Big, big shows. In the eighties and nineties it was also often to an enormous film premiere, often the biggest of the entire festive season - 2001, Fame, Forrest Gump, all that. It's a huge day.

You don't want to cram all your big shows onto three days, there's a whole fortnight to fill. And New Year's Day has always had very big shows on it.

I understand that Sky have locked down the rights to the Harry Potter series of movies for a year. How will ITV get through the festive season without hours of Potter ? They'll have to dust off the Star Wars saga again.

That's a nice present from Sky then. Talking of movies I guess they still have exclusive rights to Elf.


People generally don't want the same presents every year though.

Didn't realise you had access to BBC One +8760, Brekkie.

That would suit me

TV3 in Denmark

They're not the same programmes, though, are they? I ask for slippers every year, I don't get the same pair of slippers. I used to ask for The Beano Book every year, it was always a different book. And my parents didn't refuse to buy The Beano Book one year in the name of freshening it up.

And how does Miranda, Gavin and Stacey, The One Ronnie et al fit into this analogy?

I completely agree with Steve Williams, people look forward to Doctor Who, Strictly and EastEnders every year and it is always a different story which form a backbone to the schedule with new programmes such as Mrs Brown, Michael McIntyre and Call the Midwife have been added in the last few years such as well. I can imagine the thousands of complaints the BBC would have if they didn't show Eastenders or Doctor Who on Christmas Day and at least the BBC have some variety than soaps and Downton on ITV.

Cropping the footage? Why don't they just remake it? Then it would be HD as well.