Christmas TV 2020

Until the early 90s it was the only TV guide that carried ITV listings, therefore it would've been the first to carry ITV Christmas listings. That's probably the justification. However, Radio Times can presumably make the same claim regarding BBC listings, and since Radio Times was around before TV Times... yeah, that claim is a lie.

Maybe back in 1955 the Radio Times focussed mainly on the wireless with TV an afterthought (hence the name) so the TV Times was the original guide primarily focusing on TV.

TV Times always has Santa on the front, Radio Times has for a few years been a blue cover with a nice cartoon Santa or snowman or something along those lines, What’s on TV is generally an EastEnders couple with ‘Together at Christmas’ as the headline.

And for the umpteenth year, What's On TV do have "Together at Christmas" on the cover. Good to see we can rely on some things at these troubled times.

As for the discussion above, it is true that in terms of a proper double Christmas issue, the Radio Times were actually quite late to the party, the first double issue was in 1969 and before that they did separate weekly issues for Christmas and New Year like every other week. The TV Times had already started doing a double issue before that, so it is true to refer to it as the original bumper Christmas and New Year TV guide.

Although for the first decade or so of ITV's life, the TV Times wasn't available in every region because it was up to the individual companies to decide which publication would include their schedules, so while London, Granada and other regions had the TV Times, other regions had different magazines, and The Viewer, which was STV's guide, did a double Christmas issue back in 1963.

Funnily enough when I used to spend hours in Birmingham Central Library looking at their back issues, I found out that although TV Times was the original guide in the Midlands, they actually lost the rights to ATV listings in 1964 to a new magazine called TV World - but they carried on TV Times in the Midlands, without any listings, in the hope people would still buy it for the articles. But seemingly nobody did, as within about six weeks it says it's closing down. In the franchise round of 1968 one of the conditions of getting a franchise was that everyone had to have the same TV guide, and TV Times went national (apart from Channel who were allowed to keep doing their own to get a bit more money).

I think by 1955, television and radio had pretty much equal emphasis, though at that time radio listings were still placed ahead of television day-by-day, not changing until February 1957 when all of the week's television listings were placed ahead of radio.

All of the original issues from this era can, of course, be viewed at Genome: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/issues#decade-1950

Spider-Man: Homecoming being on BBC One this year caught me by surprise. The Beeb hasn't had the rights to the MCU since the end of Phase Two, with Ant-Man, I thought after Phase Three, the rights were kept with ITV, as they had three MCU network premieres last year: Doctor Strange at Easter, Captain America: Civil War in August, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at Christmas.

Wonder which network Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will be going to next year, assuming it will happen.

Also, no Star Wars: The Last Jedi, breaking the yearly tradition since 2018, with the network premiere of every Disney SW film on ITV at Christmas time.

It might be to do with Spider-Man being distributed via Sony rather than Disney... even though it’s counted as MCU

BTW, if anyone wants to get themselves a Christmas present on this topic, I recommend Tony Currie's book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radio-Times-Story-Tony-Currie/dp/1903053099

(Other book vendors are available)

Yet ITV also have the rights to The Amazing Spider-Man films, which were produced AND distributed by Sony, doesn't add up to me.

...they paid for them?

Not sure if it has been posted elsewhere, but Christmas Top of the Pops was filmed yesterday, with Clara Amfo and Fearne Cotton presenting as in previous years.

At The Riverside Studios..
(incase there are any studio facility geeks wondering where it was recorded, such as myself!)

BIB- it looks like ITV are holding The Last Jedi back for January instead, although nothing is scheduled yet. I'd expected it to be broadcast in the run-up to Christmas.

And, unusually, apart from the original Casino Royale being shown at 12:45am, there will be no other films on ITV at all on Christmas Day.