Most watched Christmas programme of all time is... Crocodile Dundee

IAN JONES

Stars Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski.

Fools And Horses in the top 20, along with editions of comedy classics Just Good Friends, Bread and One Foot In The Grave.

But EastEnders appears only twice, Coronation Street just once, and there is nothing from the past 16 years.

The chart, which has been compiled by the Press Association, reflects the traditional

domination of Christmas TV by the BBC, with 17 of the top 20 having been shown on BBC One.

While films make up a fifth of the chart, soap operas – a permanent fixture on December 25 for decades – barely appear, suggesting they are not quite as popular on Christmas Day as TV executives assume.

The two episodes of EastEnders in the chart are from 1986, when Den Watts famously surprised his wife Angie with divorce papers hidden inside a Christmas cracker.

Coronation Street is represented by the episode in 1987 that saw veteran resident Hilda Ogden leave Weatherfield for a new life in Derbyshire.

Missing from the top 20 entirely are Morecambe and Wise, whose most popular star-studded Christmas specials date from before the modern system of compiling ratings began in 1981.

The pair’s 1977 Christmas show is sometimes mentioned as having been watched by as many as 28 million people, but this figure was publicised by the BBC based on its own audience surveys, and is not comparable with the current system.

Another person absent from the chart is the Queen. Ratings for her annual Christmas message have not always been published.