The day when television silences the mobile phones
TRADITIONAL television remains at the heart of Christmas Day for most families despite the rise of smartphones, a survey has found.
Scheduled viewing has lost ground to on-demand services and so-called binge watching online in recent years.
However, a poll has found 62 per cent of people prefer to watch “live” television at Christmas, which this year includes the Strictly festive special, Doctor
Who and Victoria, as opposed to on-demand (13 per cent). Half said they could not live without their TV on Dec 25, double the 25 per cent who said they would be lost without their smartphone.
The research for Radiotimes.com comes after the BBC put a wide range of shows on its iplayer over Christmas, from Blue Planet and Wolf Hall to Eastenders, to compete with Netflix and Amazon. Almost half (44 per cent) said that they do not watch the Queen’s
Christmas Message. More than fourfifths (85 per cent) watch TV as a family and 77 per cent do not watch any religious programming on the day.
Almost a third (30 per cent) keep the TV on during Christmas lunch and 47 per cent admit to falling asleep in front of the small screen. The poll of 16,000 respondents found that around 41 per cent watch five hours or more of TV.