The BBC’s very familiar Xmas – Dad’s Army and Morecambe and Wise!
WITH Dad’s Army, Morecambe And Wise and Mary Poppins, most would assume it was a BBC Christmas schedule from a few decades ago.
But, in fact, these are among the Corporation’s offerings for this year’s festive season.
Viewers gathering around the TV over Christmas will find that almost 50 per cent of this year’s shows on BBC1 and BBC2 are repeats – even though a watchdog has just warned them that it must have 90 per cent fresh content during peak hours.
This year all four main TV channels are filling the hours with some rather tired old favourites. Audiences tuning in to Chan-
‘Aren’t enough new programmes’
nel 4 on Christmas Day will have reruns of The Snowman, Home Alone and four repeated episodes of The Simpsons to choose from.
Meanwhile on ITV, repeats include films Mr Bean’s Holiday and Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban.
Some 300 shows on BBC1 and BBC2 between December 23 and January 5 have been shown before. While the overall figure for BBC repeats during the festive period stands at 49 per cent, that number rises to almost 70 per cent when BBC2 is taken alone. On Christmas Day, only two of the 18 shows on BBC2 have not been shown before – Upstart Crow: A Christmas Crow and Sir Tom Jones and Beverley Knight’s Gospel Choir. This means yet more
re-runs of Dad’s Army, the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show and 2010 film Toy Story 3 on the BBC on 25 December. However, other channels are not immune from the deja-view factor over the Christmas period. In the two weeks from December 23, 44 per cent of the shows on ITV will have been aired on the channel before and 74 per cent on Channel 4 are repeats. Across the four channels, the overall number of repeats is 55 per cent, or 684 of 1,243 shows.
Chloe Westley of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said BBC viewers will be questioning what their hefty £147 licence fee goes towards when they will be sitting through so many reruns during the festive season.
She said: ‘What is the point of having multiple channels when clearly aren’t enough new programmes to sustain them?
‘The BBC should focus on giving those who pay the TV tax far better value for money.’
The repetitive Christmas schedule comes just two months after regulator Ofcom said that, under a new operating licence, 90 per cent of peak shows and 75 per cent of all BBC1 and BBC2 programmes had to be original productions commissioned by the broadcasters.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘In peak time on BBC1 over 90 per cent of programmes will be brand new.’
A spokesman for ITV said: ‘ITV has a range of specials this Christmas across entertainment, drama, comedy and factual entertainment as well as free-to-air film premieres.’