Whatever happened to the days of nation-uniting Christmas TV?
Michael Hogan blames the on-demand revolution for the paucity of good festive shows
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be but nor, it seems, is Christmas television. The big channels published their festive schedules earlier this week, and viewers found their stockings worryingly empty.
BBC One’s Christmas Day timetable in particular was met with hoots of derision. One wag on Twitter remarked that the schedule could well be a spoof, part of a clever viral campaign to advertise Netflix. Sadly for us, it’s all too real.
During the day, there are not one but three Julia Donaldson children’s animations (two of them repeats) and a pair of Disney films from several years ago. Later on, seasonal editions of Strictly Come Dancing and Call the Midwife are all very lovely and will doubtless pull in decent ratings but hardly set the pulses racing.
At the prime time hour of 9.15pm, BBC One is leading with Eastenders
– a fact that is more depressing than a wet weekend in Walford. There’s no Doctor Who, no period drama, no much-loved detective – just Danny Dyer shouting: “Get outta my pub!”
One senses that the corporation has admitted defeat and given up. Things are no better on ITV, who seem to have handed the entire schedule over to Bradley Walsh. He fronts an incredible four shows over the festive period.
Perhaps most disappointing is the paucity of quality crowd-pleasing comedy. Morecambe & Wise specials were the ultimate example, of course, but there was also a time when we’d tipsily chuckle along to special editions of Only Fools and Horses, One Foot in the Grave, The Vicar of Dibley, Men Behaving Badly, Gavin & Stacey or The Royle Family. This year, we’ve got distinctly Marmite offerings from Michael Mcintyre and Mrs Brown’s Boys.
Instead of bothering to programme top-notch new stuff, the BBC has instead settled for putting boxsets on iplayer – a sort of 21stcentury version of running repeats. They enjoyed some success with this strategy last Christmas, so are making more than 100 series available this year. It’s almost an admission on their part that we’ll be bingeing on hits we might have missed (the likes of Bodyguard, Dynasties and Killing Eve), rather than bothering with what’s on the main channels.
Sure, there are a few promising BBC dramas heading our way – Agatha Christie adaptation The ABC Murders, Andrew Davies’s epic non-musical version of Les Misérables – but they’re scheduled for that interminable no-man’s-land between Christmas and New Year.
The on-demand revolution has ruined the communal, nation-uniting nature of Christmas Day TV. Rather than all sitting down together, paper crowns still on our heads, a Quality Street tin being passed from lap to lap, families are increasingly disappearing to different rooms to watch different things on different screens.
Figures show that roughly the same number of Britons are watching television each Christmas. They’re just not doing so together. Only 20 years ago, the big shows would be watched by 24 million people, almost half the nation. Now, they’re lucky to pull in a third of that figure.
Bah, humbug!