Christmas TV around the World

Hardly the other side of the globe now, but here in Ireland we do pretty much the same as yourselves: a mixture of Christmas specials, carol/religious services, films and films and films, and the obligatory soaps, Irish and British. RTÉ as ever make all the effort, while TV3 being the patently commerical outfit that they are does feck all programming-wise, indeed nothing at all save a few festive idents.

If there's one advanatge we have here it is our small country status - we get to see newly relased films usually 30mins before the BBC!
Oh the honour

Seemingly tweaked versions of these RTÉ idents are being used this year (just pics, but video if you want it):

http://thetvroom.com/p-rte-one-xmas-e.shtml

Sounds very much like a "chicken and the egg" situation.

Do the networks put on repeats because no one watches - or does no one watch because the networks put on repeats?


Also, what episodes do they repeat? Is it usually just a random episode, or do they go for repeating Christmas specials where possible, either screened earlier in the month or in previous years.

I couldn't help but notice the other night whilst I was looking on RTÉ.ie that the Father Ted Christmas Special was being shown half an hour earlier on RTÉ Two than what it was on Channel 4, though silly observation considering it's a Channel 4 repeat.

It tends to be this case as you mentioned, I presume RTÉ has shown many of the same Films as the BBC, such as Shrek or Toy Story 2?