DS News gets it right on repeats.
http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/feature...-and-new-year/
Pinch, punch, first of the month. We've officially entered the festive period and you can already start planning your Christmas and New Year around what's on the telly box, with the major broadcasters having firmed up their schedules for the last two weeks of December.
But, of course, with the listings come the gripes: the BBC's critics are targeting it for an alleged over-reliance on repeats. The ultimate irony being, of course, that the same tabloids publish that same story every year.
The BBC has already fired back at its critics, clarifying that there are actually fewer repeats this year than last, with 90% of peak-time shows being all-new and original. Its apparent crime, failing to spend our licence fee on new programming, is a fiction. (That fee, by the way, works out at around £6 across the whole festive period. It's daylight robbery, we tells ya!)
But here's a newsflash: if you demand the BBC saves £150m by 2017, plus an additional £550m by 2021/22, there have will to be major cuts – which there have already been anyway. Twelve million quid of that reduction is coming out of the TV budget. While drama is protected, factual, comedy and entertainment are taking a hit.
In future, that might mean less original programming. Which would mean more repeats (unless you'd prefer we go back to the dark old days of that creepy as hell Test Card). But is that really such a bad thing? What's the harm in revisiting some old classics?
Edit.
There's a reason why we get excited by the Coke ad every year. Why we listen to Wizzard, Wham and Mariah again and again and again. We all enjoy the ritual of the thing.
It's why the schedules look the same every year. Even the original programming is mostly new editions of old favourites. Doctor Who, Call the Midwife, Strictly Come Dancing – and outside of the BBC, the likes of Birds of a Feather on ITV, or Channel 4's Big Fat Quiz of the Year.
A big part of what we love about this year on year is the routine of it all: our own little Christmas traditions, whatever those might be, that we rehash every single year. The whole thing's about nostalgia and familiar treats. So we'll take our 10% of same old, same old and hold it tight, thanks very much.