Christmas Schedules

Yeah, Pad have a bit of sympathy will you.

Well according to Outpost Gallifrey we should see the first trailer for Doctor Who tomorrow at around 7 and several times during the night, and the first BBC One trailer will be before EastEnders tonight!!

You know that it's not long now. I wonder if they'll be using a song this year, personally I doubt that they will beat last years song to the tune of Good King Wenceslas.

Technically though, Christmas special programmes will most probably begin in 2 weeks time!

I remember the good old days when channels would have special trailers launching their new seasons, now this just happens at Christmas. It's funny but no matter how crap the programmes are there's a certain buzz when you see them in a spangly Christmas trailer.

Well considering the festive line up is crap except for Doctor Who, they will really need to sell it well this year so they need to start the trails earlier!

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned that apart from films, over on BBC Three there between 17 - 30th December during the hours it's on air - there appears to be only (not counting films) 8 new programmes. All the rest are repeats or compilations. Pathetic.

And just for what it's worth, I still can't believe that anchoring the mid evening slot on Christmas Day on the BBC's main tv channel is a special edition of a sit-com which only had moderate ratings sucess during it's run. It'd be OK in a similar slot on either day the side of the 25th but not on the day itself. If ITV stick Corrie on at 8pm, that's victory to the commercial boys by a big margin in that timeslot - I can hear the celebrating going on at 200 Grays Inn Road from here.

And on Christmas Eve on One between 10.40am - 6.25pm apart from 2x15 mins of news there is nothing but films.
Staggering, complacent and lazy programming.

I'm confused. I just saw the first Christmas trailer on BBC1 and one of the clips they showed in their film package was Bridget Jones' Diary. Now wasn't that on Channel 4 aqhile back? Did the BBC and Channel 4 enter into a film deal or something?

The fact that most programs are starting at O' Clock just show to me how crap this year line is. Normal the BBC1 on Xmas night is jam-packed with great programs with every minute being unmissable and program start at all sort of different times. But this year it shows the beeb is finding it hard to even fill the night with programs, I think the Xmas eve line up is better.

Indeed, that will just be Two Pints Of Lager....The Musical again then

The BBC do seem to be finding it hard to fill their schedules over Christmas. If they can't find anything, they stick loads of films on to fill the gap. Personally I would prefer they show a few films on rather than show that Diagnosis Murder or Murder She Wrote which BBC1 seem to be showing quite alot of recently, particularly on Sunday afternoons.

So is everyone rushing out today to buy their copy of the festive tv mags.

Personally I've made a point of not looking at Digiguide listings so as not to spoil it.

Ha ha, well as I was in town, popped to WHSmith, they had those special green boxes near the tills for the TV Mags, but only had TV Times and TV Quick, no RT yet.

Anyway, looking through, the Christmas Day schedule is all very neat and tidy this year isn't it ? 6, 7, 8 & 9 start times on BBC & ITV

Could be a share of the ratings this year, my predictions :

6pm My Family vs Emmerdale - Emmerdale win
7pm Doctor Who vs WWTBAM celebrity - Doctor Who win
8pm Green Green Grass vs Corrie - Corrie win
9pm Eastenders vs Booze Cruise 2 - could be close, Booze Cruise could be a surprise but probably Eastenders

Incidentally, the WWTBAM Celebrity is Terry Wogan with the person who bid £40,000 to appear on the show in the Children in Need auction. For me, Eastenders is on for too long and too late.