Christmas Television 2011

The first Christmas Day in a long time I suspect I didn't at least watch something on BBC1 - and overall I think Christmas TV isn't what it once was, but rose tinted spectacles and all that. I am fed up of the BBC relying on the same three or four shows for Christmas Day itself, and their over reliance on EastEnders over the festive fortnight - an extra two hours and 40 minutes of it - Corrie actually loses two episodes in return for a Christmas Day slot.

It has been a poor Christmas Day on BBC1 but at least it didn't rely on three hours of drama like ITV1!

A lot of people don't like The Royle Family, but it felt like BBC One was lacking a bit sitcom. I know Caroline Aherne apparently didn't submit a script on time.

Surprised David Jason's new sitcom didn't get a Christmas day airing, which makes me think perhaps the BBC don't have much confidence in it. I'd also would have stuck Mrs Brown's Boys christmas special on at 10pm rather than Ab Fab, but then that's more down to personal taste as the latter is something that's never really appealed to me. Having said that Mrs Brown's Boys is a blossoming sit com and Christmas day would have dragged an audience that never bothered with it during the first series into it.

I found yesterday easily the worst Christmas Day schedule ever, and the overnights show it - the first ever year that no programmes at all managed an average of ten million viewers, EastEnders missing out by a whisker by averaging 9.9 million (not helped by being scheduled against Downton Abbey). The BBC have surprisingly mentioned this, although still putting a bit of a positive spin on things: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16332285

To compare, Only Fools got 21 million in 2001, and Wallace and Gromit got 16 million in 2008.

With On Demand & HD viewing figures added it'll probably just peak above 10 million for the final figures (and peaked at 10.2 million in overnights), but even so it's a poor showing this year. If something can get 16 million as recently as 2008 (and multi-channel TV/internet usage hasn't increased that much since, has it?) surely it can next year?

That's because ITV put in some effort for once and viewers spread out more across the two channels more than they usually do.

I'm not holding out much hope for The Royal Bodyguard tonight. It looks so awful from the promos.

It's atrocious.

The royal body guard is just not my cup of tea, I'd never watch anything like that but I'm sure it will have its fans.

I was over at the in laws today and I was "forced" to watch that crappy jim'll fix it. It was awful. If they wanted to pay homage to Jimmy Savile could they not have come up with something a bit more intesting, it was lame and had none of the charm of the original show. Shane Richie has the personality and presenting abilities of Peter Andre and that is being exceedingly generous. He is a cretin.

As for what I'd like to see, well, at this moment I can't draw up a fantasy schedule but a few dreamworks, pixar, Disney feature films, say recent within the last five years and then a handful of classics, you know Mary Poppins, Bedknobbs and broom sticks, maybe something male/ female orientated on the secondary channels, Star Wars, Bond, Bridget Jones diary, Love Actually etc.


Just caught the rerun of eastenders : classic moment .... "I'd like to report a murder".... Hands memory stick to policeman, pointy finger gesture, he walks away....Hahaha what load of ****, surely they could have asked him to say "can I take a statement?" I'm no expert on police procedures of course, but that wouldn't break the flow of the piece, no more than a bloke standing completely motionless in a burning building just in time for the floor to fall in. Dreadful stuff, but then that's plot by committee.

Main reason why that and Mrs brown boy was placed on Today was because it where the rest of the episodes will be played out on.... Mondays. E2 will be on next Monday etc.

But people don't keep to normal schedules at Christmas, days just go out of the go out of the window. And yes The Royal Bodyguard just wasn't funny.

What about Absolutely Fabulous? That was quite good, as was the Michael Mcintyre thing after it which had a great line-up and was a good mainstream bit of variety.


I think it was more that they didn't get round to writing it, wholey or partly because of Craig Cash's commitment to The Cafe

BBC1 was missing The Royle Family. I got the impression the schedulers were originally planning to work around that Christmas Day but obviously it wasn't finished in time. Yes, I think the scripts have lacked something since the comeback but it's still something of an institution.

Ab Fab is a little bit dated now (especially the Saffy character) but under Jen Saunders's writing, it doesn't seem to matter for some reason!

As for 'Jim'll Fix It With Shane Richie' (to give it its full title). Firstly, I'm surprised at the amount of letters sent in handwritten and why not just call the show 'Shane'll Fix It' for goodness sake? Needless to say, if it doesn't come back as a regular series, I can see Shane taking over from Noel on Sky One, Shane's Christmas Presents next year?

I thought the Christmas Day offerings this year were extremely bad. The Christmas episode of EastEnders I felt was on too late, don't see why it couldn't have been put on at 8 instead of 9. No wonder none of the programmes broke the 10m mark ratings wise. The movies were mostly a load of crap, BBC One was showing a load of Disney cartoons all day. I love Disney and animation films but it didn't feel right to have so many on Christmas Day. The early evening slot was occupied by Ratatouille which I found strange. ITV's only main offering was Downton this year. Poor year for Chrtistmas TV and I hope that 2012 has a much better and thought out christmas schedule.