Quite possibly. And look how that turned out!

ITV are not even trying this year. a Harry Potter film on every single night is shameful

In fact two shows were mentioned. Who Do You Think You Are, and Question Time. Both rested until the new year. Can't imagine having a QT on at Christmas, but wonder why WDYTYA is not on tomorrow.


I thought you may have approved HHG.

We watched nothing Xmas day. Everone in my house agreed TV was appaling on the night. The worst BBC1 has been by far. The BBC1 quality is dreadful these days but on the biggest day of the year.....DREADFUL!

But they didn't take WDYTYA off. The series ended on 22nd.

No there are another five episodes to go. Ricky Tomlinson's ep (22nd December) was only 5/10 - so another 5 to be aired yet.

Viewing figures over the period are not huge, the days are gone where they could put on a special and get over 20 million viewers. If they put WDYTYA on tomorrow then many would miss it because they are doing other things or just away from home. They might catch it on their PVR but not everyone.

Then they've split the series. It's not on the schedules in January and the BBC website says there are no upcoming broadcasts. So effectively the series ended on 22nd.

Very true. The days between Christmas and New Year are a funny time of the year for TV companies to know what to do for the best.

Some of that is simply over-stated and becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you decide you won't get bigger audiences, you won't expend the time, money and talent on making programmes to attract a bigger audience, and you'll end up saying 'told you so'. It's like about twenty-odd years ago, some smug idiots at the TV festival declared that Saturday night TV was dead, so no one bothered to make anything decent for Saturday night...until both BBC and ITV almost blundered into finding that the potential audience was pretty much still there.

If better programmes and schedules were put on, viewers would watch in greater numbers. The idea that most are now far too distracted by having so many extra niche channels full of garbage and repeats is just a nonsense.

It's one reason why the likes of C4 and others spend so much time making sneering programmes about the 60s and 70s. They need to denigrate and obscure the better attitude to audiences of the time because otherwise they'd have to try to emulate them, and that would be far too much trouble.

As you say Series 13 must have been split then. At the end of the last ep they said it was back in the new year. Sure I read somewhere that it was back on the 12th. But I can't confirm that as I can't recall where I read it.

It seems that every year, Channel 5 go hunting for the most number of Christmas movies it's possible to air in the period of 4 months (yes, they start in September!). One nice thing is that they're not always the old hoary chestnuts that we see every year, but are often Christmas-themed US TV movies made in the last few years.

We had Tricia Helfer (of Battlestar Galactica/Lucifer fame) in a military family "Operation Christmas" TV movie that was one of the few Hallmark movies I've seen that didn't make me want to gag. It may have even been a UK premiere because it premiered in the US in Nov 2016.

As for the rest of the Christmas schedule, it's always been a case of "grin and bear it" because all your favourite shows (whether they be UK or US ones) take a break and any that attempt to air Christmas specials are usually much worse than normal. I just save up some shows aired pre-Christmas and watch those over the break instead.

Surprisingly Channel 5 has been the unexpected Christmas saviour for me this year! Some real gems squirrled away. They had a great Graham Norton bio/documentary. Even the Morcambe and Wise story, showed new clips we'd not seen before, with interesting behind the scenes footage, of how a show as put together and pogniant new footage leading up to Eric's heart attack. The talking heads were Eric's son and daugther and others close to him giving their unique insights. Rather than the usual z lister celebs they tend to churn out.

Yes it's shockingly bad. Over Christmas I have barely watched anything besides traditional favourites (Snowman, Disney classics). I like Call The Midwife but otherwise BBC1 is terrible if you don't like depressing soaps, awful modern animations, dance competitions or unfunny 'comedians'comedies' . ITV is just as bad, bloody coronation street and Harry Potter non stop.

It's not just Christmas telly either, it's garbage all year around, ITV is one long merry go round of crap reality rubbish, at least BBC only have the dancing for the autumn even if they do put it on every single day for that time. What are you supposed to watch if you don't like cookery competitions, dance competitions, singing competitions, talentless nobodies, anything with Cowell and those by now irritating Geordies, puerile tripe, unfunny 'comedians', films full of noise for the sake of noise, anything done in that insufferable computerised animation, sport and soaps with stories that go round and round in circles? And don't say get Sky or something, because I am not paying a subscription service for channels full of repeats and loud American films. The main channels should provide programmes that appeal to everyone not just fans of soaps, sport and reality trash which is all they seem to think anyone is interested in.

This is total pie in the sky. Better? What does that even mean? They are putting on the most viewed programmes of the year. What could possibly convince you that putting on unknowns and new programmes without loyal base audiences would improve matters? You're trying to cure a problem that doesn't exist. The top 5 programmes on Christmas Day all topped 6m. Any other day that would be considered a triumph!

So why haven't you sold your television and found something useful to do other than moaning about something in which you claim to no longer have any interest?

Bah humbug

Because their only pleasure in life is watching TV shows they don't like and then whining online, much like many others here.

Much like those here who hate the Big Bang Theory and have watched every episode, all of the repeats and the unaired pilot but hate it since episode 1. And still feel the need to clog every thread with their whines.

What would you have put on?

I love how so many people list the types of programs they don't like as proof that Christmas TV is rubbish, despite the programs getting high viewing figures. They also rarely write what they consider "good" Christmas TV. I'm sure their ideas would be far less popular than the programs that "experts" commission and broadcast (but we've had enough of experts haven't we).

1. Cos I need the telly to play dvd's in and copy tapes to DVD and 2. There are some things on worth watching, but their very few and far between. Even further if you don't want to count repeats or old films.

Im getting fed up of the constant animated movies, it is lazy scheduling.

I still think my suggested Xmas Day schedule would pull in viewers. Pleasing a few more people - what an alien concept.

I'm getting fed up with barely literate moaning; it is lazy commenting.

What schedule? A list of genres that you think might be interesting (to you) does not a schedule make.