Text Santa 2014

Text Santa 2014 is underway, and Ant and Dec are sat in front of an 8-sided snowflake.

Incidentally, The Chase earlier had the Text Santa overlay, as well as a small segment at the end featuring Bradley Walsh teasing for the main show. It did seem a bit incongruous, but matching the cash pot win with a Text Santa donation was nice.

A special edition of Tipping Point aired at 4pm.

Ben Shephard presented, with his 4 contestants from GMB. Susanna, Charlotte, Andi and Richard.

Charlotte won £10k and the others totals made £13k for text santa charities.

Odd since normal celebrity editions have the prize as £20k.

A shame The Chase aired a separate Christmas special last weekend and didn't do anything specific for Text Santa as the last couple of years they've aired episodes on the day itself. I think even repeating one of them would have been better than airing a normal one.

Once again, Text Santa is proving much more watchable than Children In Need.

I have fast forwarded through a fair bit since recording it, but it's generally more enjoyable and upbeat than CiN. It's probably the festivity that gives it the edge.

I agree it is much better than CIN. I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it again this year - no repetitive stories (and what was there was entirely watchable), a decent pace, a good use of the presenting talent, and it didn't seem cheap.

Incidentally, I think it's the first time Heron Foods has ever received a credit on ITV.

It may be seen as more watchable, but it doesn't seem to have the fundraising power of CiN, Sport Relief or Comic Relief.

CiN raised more than £30m this year.

It's great that ITV are doing Text Santa, and it's great that it raises money for good causes. Equally I think there needs to be a recognition that CiN know what actually gets people to donate money.

I've always been under the impression that the on-the-night total on Children in Need includes any amount announced on the night. If that's true, I do wonder what the difference between Text Santa and Children in Need is once that is taken into account.

An event that has so much promotion outside of the appeal night is bound to raise more money.

It also showed that you can do a family friendly appeal (which I believe it was all night) without being sanitised and boring.

Not sure but last year's CIN final total when all donations were taken into account was over 20m more than the on the night total. (50m). Text Santa added about 1m to their total.

Stand up to Cancer definitely had far less promotion and raised nearly 15m on the night. Nearly double the previous total.
The total last night includes the profits from the phone calls on I'm a celebrity get me out of here, Philip's 24 hour marathon and nearly daily appeals/items on This Morning and Lorraine.