Ooh, DS have put up Christmas Day repeat ratings for the soaps on ITV2 which makes for interesting reading:

Coronation Street
13:00 - 596,000 (4.5%) - ITV2
14:00 - 229,000 (1.6%) - ITV2 +1
18:00 - 495,000 (2.2%) - ITV2
Total = 1.32m watched a repeat of the Xmas Day episode

Emmerdale
12:00 - 485,000 (4.0%)
19:00 - 671,000 (2.9%)
Total = 1.16m watched a repeat of the Xmas Day episode

So a lot do watch the repeats on ITV2 if the miss the original airings, most of those may make the Top 10 for ITV2, actually.

To be honest thats not a bad rating for Songs of Praise in itself, but I take your point. BBC1 has gone with form-Songs of Praise is on a Sunday (in years gone by didnt we have " Christmas Sunday" displacing Boxing Day to Monday?) and they havent altered on the basis its Boxing Day. Interesting to see what they do next year when Christmas Day falls on the Sunday.
Nigel Slater's stuff certainly wasnt Boxing Day BBC1 for me-should have been on BBC2.

To be honest, the Songs of Praise "Boxing Day Big Sing" is a pretty important part of BBC One's religious commitments at Christmas - I don't think the show could have been abandoned yesterday without serious trouble. I do agree though, that the BBC should have been looking at a film to take the slot in the lead-up to EE. I think they could have done it without harming the rest of the schedule unduly too - Cars was wasted on Christmas Eve afternoon IMO.

Yes, absolutely disgraceful that a Public Service Broadcaster screened religion on a Sunday evening instead of trying to pulverise ITV into the ground in the ratings.

Calm down, Robbie. They are far more important things in the world to get worked up about than the BBC not maximising their viewing figures.

I predict the Songs Of Praise Big Christmas Sing will go out at 1pm before Top Of The Pops.

Sounds acceptable.

I miss that version of Gold. That was what turned me back into a huge Doctor Who fan. They showed all of the stories as omnibus editions on Sunday mornings. They also repeated every single edition of the BBC Morecambe & Wise Shows, old Generation Games, Dick Emery, The Goodies. So much great stuff.

What annoys me is that even the repeats on BBC2 are repeats. They show the Porridge and Dad's Army Christmas specials every year and now Are You Being Served even though they wouldn't touch that programme for years, then they repeated one in primetime and ratings were great.

They should take a chance on some more old comedies.

Upstairs Downstairs' 15-minute breakdown is excellent, building 0.7m throughout the hour which bodes well for tonight. Sure it might not be at the level Downton was at, but 7.5m for any drama is absolutely fantastic and right up there with the likes of Sherlock and Rock & Chips' opening ratings.

Benidorm seemed to benefit the most once Top Gear finished, jumping over a million compared to the previous 15-minutes. It was pretty stable between 9.15-10pm, a drop of 0.4m is pretty insignificant once you factor in the fact the 9.15pm segment would've been artificially boosted by channel hoppers.

I agree with others that the BBC could've done better if they'd scheduled their programmes differently.

Yes I can remember watching The Goodies too. Youre right-alot of great stuff. Also miss Granada Plus which had alot of the old ITV seventies stuff.

Interesting that when TG finished, Benidorm saw an immediate lift of 1.1m whereas Upstairs went up just 0.3m.

This confirms what I speculated earlier about Benidorm being the "softer" option for joining late rather than Upstairs. The Live Aid drama did abysmally at retaining the TG audience - only 1.7m even bothered to try the first 15 mins!

Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar is turning out to be a Christmas flop - just 1m last night, and sub-1m without the HD simulcast. Perhaps people thought it was a repeat of Tuesday's opener?

Probably better if it was called Lowering the Bar then rather than raising it...

Maybe BBC Two should do a "christmas past" next year like C5 have partially done featuring all the shows you have listed.

It annoys me that the BBC as you say have a huge archive that we and generations before us have paid for, however a lot of the archive content sits on the shelf gathering dust.

Upstairs Downstairs did brilliantly and I imagine it'll stay level or even increase tonight which should be enough for a recommision.

Top Gear did good but the Live Aid drama did appallingly, would have done better if not scheduled against UD. Bernidorm and The Mummy did very good.

Looking forward to Toast on Thursday, I think had it not been for UD, it would have been scheduled on Boxing Day like other one off dramas have. Also looking forward to Eric and Ernie but NYD may hurt its chances but I expect 2-3m. Interesting that BBC One hasn't really commisioned any biopics, it's been BBC Two and BBC Four so far.

This however probably got 18 million viewers back in 1985! 7 million more than Eastenders could muster this year.

Perhaps the Big Sing could fill The One Ronnie's slot, before next year's Doctor Who special? I'm sure that will delight the Dr Who geeks...

WIth Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, when will next year's Christmas No 1 be announced - on the Saturday, or actually on Christmas Day itself?

An important question because it obviously impacts on the scheduling of the X Factor...

[EDIT: a quick skim of the Official Chart Co website suggests the xmas no 1 for 2004 was announced on 25/12/04]

I think it's on the actual Sunday itself. So if Cowell wants Christmas No. 1, he'd have a better chance by having the final one week later on Sunday 18th December.

But that would also result in it possibly facing Sports Personality of the Year which would dent TXF's rating (as witnessed last year) so they might be better off just having TXF Final on the same weekend as this year (Sunday 11th Dec) and hoping the 2nd week sales of the winner's single is good enough to clinch Xmas No. 1.

Yes it would be Christmas Day itself, so X Factor will finish a week later next year.

I imagine Strictly would end up finishing the same weekend too.

Thats a good one, because potentially XF and SCD will have their finals the previous weekend together. However presumably it would just mean the release of the XF record could be delayed a week if the current situation is to be maintained.

Well, the Beeb moved SPOTY this year to avoid the TXF Final, so if the Final is on 18/12/11, then I could see the Beeb moving SPOTY back to its usual berth the week before.

It would mean the Strictly Final clashing with the first half of the TXF Final on the Saturday.

Could be interesting. But I imagine ITV's shareholders will demand that TXF airs on the 10th/11th to maximise ad earnings - the advertisers will want people in the shops etc long before w/c 19th December, so that will probably prevail over Cowell's desire to get the Christmas No 1 single.

It's finished on the weekend before Christmas before (in 2005) so not beyond the realms of possibility.

Spot on.

Everyone has to recognise that this is a classic example of why the BBC exists at all in its current form.

If people just want the BBC to maximise ratings for soaps / reality shows / drama / comedy then I'm afraid the entire case for a publicly funded BBC goes completely out of the window.

I think some tend to lose sight of that on this thread.

Indeed.

The other associated point (which to be fair is sometimes mentioned on here) is that the BBC has to provide a variety of programming so it serves EVERYONE.

I am not at all religious but we have to recognise there are still a significant number of people (even if only a small minority) for whom religion is still a central part of their lives and these people have to be served.

Especially at Christmas it would be very wrong if they were left out just to fit in yet another high rating entertainment programme.

Dragons Den?

Come Fly with Me to return for Royal Wedding special: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...-me-plans.html