Christmas TV 2020

For the past few years theve hidden Doctor who on New Years Eve. Really hope it comes back to Christmas Day though.

Sorry I’ve deleted it, I thought that rule only applied to mock news channel presenter schedules

It's gonna be intresting for this year's Christmas idents. Are we going to see anything new or maybe something old.

I have a feeling BBC One and Channel 5 will be the only one's who will be doing something this year. BBC2 never changes their christmas idents anyways, ITV may show the same ITV Creates idents from last year and Channel 4 never really change their idents unless it's for a tv adaptation of a children's book.

As long as Jonathan Van Tamme or Chris Whitty aren’t on our screens it’ll be the best Xmas ever

Since when did broadcasting a programme on New Years Day (as opposed to any other day of the year) constitute it being "hidden"? 🤨🤔

Yes, and likely Millionare as well.

Overall, you’re looking at something like this:

7am - GMB
9am - Lorraine
10am - This Morning
12pm - James Martin
2pm - Ainsley
3pm - Queen
3.10pm - Tenable
4.00pm - (Probably) Tipping Point
5.00pm - The Chase
6.00pm - Emmerdale
7.00pm - BGT
8.30pm - Corrie
9.30pm - Millionaire

Well indeed, New Year's Day is a bloody big telly day as well, given that it's a night virtually nobody goes out (I know that's much difference to any other day this year) and so it's always home to loads of high profile programmes, it's probably a better day than Christmas Day.



I don't think TV-am was live on Christmas Day very often if at all, because as Morning Glory points out, in the early days there was a union agreement that they wouldn't do live shows on Sundays and public holidays, so Frost on Sunday would be recorded on the Saturday afternoon (which Mike Hollingsworth refers to as "the most apalling union agreement for a live television company"). There was a bit of a notorious example of that backfiring on Sunday 1st April 1984 when they did an April Fool about Albert Tatlock from Coronation Street, and Jack Howarth who played him had actually died overnight. In Morning Glory Mike Hollingsworth said they recorded the Christmas Day 1984 show on the afternoon of 15th December, after much debate with the unions who said they couldn't record a three hour show in three hours, with Hollingsworth saying they did a three hour show in three hours every day, live.

Presumably in later years that union agreement was changed, certainly after Bruce Gyngell rode a coach and horses through it, but in the later years they pretty much just showed cartoons on Christmas Day.

In 1993, the famous ITV Christmas where they put all their big shows out in the weeks before Christmas to get the advertising revenue and just showed back to back films on Christmas night, it was a Saturday and they showed What's Up Doc, The Chart Show and Movies, Games and Videos in the morning like every other Saturday. What's Up Doc was certainly pre-recorded, because Live and Kicking was also on that morning and they both featured Take That, with Live and Kicking repeatedly pointing out they were the only show that was live and the only show with Take That live. The previous year Anne and Nick had been live on BBC1 on Christmas morning.

It's funny that we're all used now to osentensibly live shows like Lorraine and Loose Women regularly being pre-recorded, but back in the eighties and nineties, other than Gone Live which was explicitly billed as such, I think most people just assumed all shows like this would be live. I assume looking back at them now they might look quite obviously pre-recorded but we weren't to know. The Talking Telephone Numbers breakdown is a great example, it absolutely blew me away to realise most of the show was pre-recorded, but from a current perspective, why wouldn't it be?

On the BBC stuff, The Strictly special I think is best moments full stop, not just Christmas moments. There was a vote on the official site recently and it had things like Ed Balls's Gangam Style in it.

On Doctor Who, I think this episode was filmed along with last year's series so has been in the can for a while. Received wisdom was that it was destined for New Year's Day again at the time of filming, but it has been suggested in places it may get aired on Christmas Day instead now as needs must.

Funnily enough it's looking like the original New Years Day guess maybe right!

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-whos-new-series-less-22994454

Yeah, Strictly is a clip show and not a special, and Michael Mckintyre's show won't be happening, and thus a slot is freed up for Doctor Who. That's the logic for it going back to Christmas Day. We don't know yet that it actually is though.

Agreed, except for BBC2. As well as showing all previous years' idents, they usually add a new one to the mix.

With regards to this year's Christmas idents, BBC Two may add another new one (or two) to their selection.

I wonder whether BBC One will have a lockdown-linked Christmas ident this year, in line with what is currently being used for idents during the pandemic. For example, a collage of viewers' Christmas trees.

Then again, they may opt for something to try and take viewers' minds away from the current situation...