Next year could be interesting.

Far from this year's scramble for BBC1 to find anything to put on Christmas Day - next year they could easily end up with The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey, Ab Fab and Michael McIntyre to chose from. And the creators of each would likely feel let down if they didn't up on Christmas Day, as they've all been there before now.

And with a limited Christmas budget, its questionable whether they could afford to do bring back 3 big comedies at once.

Perhaps the Ab Fab movie will prevent another Christmas special anyway.

It will give us plenty of time to throw back at GeorgeS all his barbs about the BBC remaking old ITV productions rather than coming up with new ideas of their own...

Think Comedy Roadshow won't be on Christmas Day, you could easily show that the week before or during that week.

The Royle Family and Gavin and Stacey would work but it would prevent other comedies having a shot of a big audience.

Film wise, they've got a better selection compared to this year. Up would do well for them but I don't know which slot it'll get, either 3.10pm or 4.50pm.

But Michael McIntrye's show got great buzz and everyone seems to be saying how good it was. It worked well in the slot and he was really excited about being given a show on Christmas Day.

Would seem odd to have such a success and then not offer him the same opportunity again.

Nice to have that dilemma though. And hopefully BBC1 will have more comedies in the future to be choosing from around Christmas with Miranda and Mrs Browns Boys gaining an audience and potentially The Royal Bodyguard too.

A far cry from a few years ago when they had nothing on the go at all and had to bring back The Two Ronnies and then The Vicar of Dibley just to have one big comedy on Christmas Day.

It'll be interesting how The Royal Bodyguard and Mrs Brown's Boys do tonight against Poirot as to the competition's a lot easier and TRB will have a EE lead in. Both are paired up for their regular series.

Would love Miranda on Christmas Day but I think it would more likely get Christmas Eve or Boxing Day if Gavin and Stacey and The Royle Family were to return next year.

I think Downton will inevitably time-shift far better than it rates in overnights. I pretty much agree with Robbie's assessment - as much as I do love DA (and I really did think the episode was fantastic and it was nice for ITV to put something decent on for once) I'm not really sure it suited Christmas night - if it's brought back next year I'd personally schedule it on the Sunday before Xmas night.

On Christmas night I think the vast majority of people are just looking for laughs and AbFab and McIntyre provided that in droves.

If Fincham did say Downton was there to win the night then it strikes me as being slightly naive. And this isn't "underpredicting" but BBC1 traditionally dominates Christmas and I don't even think the 'mighty' Downton will ever change that.

I would be surprised if MM has out-rated DA, AF maybe have topped it though EE ought have beaten DA. The standard of comedy on Christmas Day is traditionally hit and miss, CFWM was panned last year, but got the viewers and TRF had its detractors on occasion. I do think DA will have got 8m viewers, 6m or 7m would be a disappointment for everyone concerned.

EastEnders beat Downton Abbey in the Christmas Day ratings:

EASTENDERS: 9.92m (33.39%)
DOWNTON ABBEY: 8.13m (29.44%) , +1: 433k

Source: Michael Rosser

No surprises there but the rating for Downton is just about bang on what I was thinking. EastEnders close to 10m but should timeshift to possibly 10.5m-11m and DA should timeshift to above 9m.

No real surprise that EE won, but Downton can still hold its head high with that rating. With +1 included it was only half a million or so less than it was getting against Spooks in the Autumn, so considering the competition was much tougher, it ran until 11pm and had no XF lead-in I still think it did really well. EE did very well obviously, and was slightly higher than I expected it to be, but Downton does have a small chance of overtaking it in the official ratings.

EastEnders normally timeshifts less than a million on Christmas Day. It might timeshift a million this time so as you say, it could be looking at an official of around 11m. If we assume DA will timeshift 2.0-2.5m (a tad higher than it normally does), it will be mighty close in the consolidated figures. Good overnights ratings for both given the circumstances.

Eastenders most watched TV show on Christmas Day #tvovernights

Source: John Williams

8.9m for Doctor Who.

Yes DA will catch up in timeshift.

Eastenders was the highest show of the day in the o/nights btw so lowish figures this year all round. Hodges quoting peaks so you know he is disappointed

Doctor Who was the 3rd most watched show on Christmas Day, according to Doctor Who News.

#EastEnders was the highest rating Christmas Day programme, peaking at 10.4m #BBC1

Oddly low for DW. It's got 10m before on Xmas Day and it was only up against Family Fortunes.

I can only assume SCD was the second most watched programme on Xmas Day.

Hmm, Doctor Who looks low, it got 10.3m last year and has been as high as 12.2m in recent years so whilst that's still good, it's a disappointment.

Good for both in the overnights, Downton did very well I think considering how ITV1 normally does on Christmas Day.

However, disappointing that nothing was above 10m.

We've seen Doctor Who timeshift at least 2 million, so it could still be on course for a low 11m in the officials.

Eastenders got the same as Royle Family at 9pm last year but its share of 33% was a lot lower than Royle Family's 38%. Roughly last year 26m were watching at 9pm, this year 30m, so the fact that Downton Abbey got 4m more than Poirot shows that perhaps DA enticed viewers to watch at 9 who wouldn't necessarily have done in the past. So a decent success

Sam Hodges is saying Doctor Who was 2nd most watched show yesterday, slightly different to what DWNews said. Both say 8.9m though.

Strangely low Xmas ratings. Last year, of the top of my head, we had EastEnders, Royle Family, Come Fly With Me and I think Doctor Who all above 10m. No shows above 10m. It's relatively low compared to previous years.

It's not too surprising most shows were under 10m given the respective clashes, although I guess the Doctor Who rating is slightly strange as it had the best slot and that was the one on paper which looked like having the best chance. I wonder if Family Fortunes picked up a good 5m+ counter audience?

Can't understand most of the comments so far. These Ratings are not low. In this day and age with all the digital channels to get 3 programs that rate above 8m is fantastic.

And remember that last year the whole country was under a persistent blanket of snow and had very low temperatures, less people out & about visiting etc, and sitting in front of the TV and a warm fire was much more agreeable.