The Lib Dem DCMS team have clearly just had their Christmas Radio Times delivered, and they’re not impressed.
Don Foster has been campaigning against Christmas repeats for years. And this year it’s worse than ever!
- More than a third of all programmes shown between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day will be repeats.
- ITV is the only channel to not to have increased its Christmas Day repeats since 2003.
- Channel Five is the worst offender with 60% of all the programmes shown over Christmas being repeats, including a doubling in Christmas Day repeats.
8 Comments
I would suggest to Don he do the job he is paid for and not concern hismself with this drivile.
If this is his biggest worry he really needs to get out more….and for God’s sake its yet another chance for people to laugh at us!!
Please don’t hold up ITV as something to be admired. ITV have long given up on trying at Christmas. They may not have increased their repearts since 2003, but to show a film that has been shown before on Terrestrial TV as you “big film” on Christmas Day (Harry Potter) and to fill your line up with soaps is hardly setting the world on fire.
ITV used to be a big part of Christmas, remember the old jingle “Christmas means ITV”. Nowadays, having seen the Radio Times, I cannot see a programme on ITV I will watch for about 5 days over Christmas.
The BBC has spent a lot on one off dramas, comedy specials and some new to terristrial films.
Shame on ITV !
Not another Xmas repeat – Don Foster has campaigning against Christmas repeats for years
I say go and roast chestnuts by the fire, argue over trivial pursuit answers (original genus edition which is 20 years out of date and at least 30% wrong now), and nick the good bits out of everyone elses stockings – who needs tv.
or you could buy a book from amazon party libdem deal fingy and educate yourself instead…
Hmmm – it’s surely not surprising ITV puts less effort in Xmas telly. The lucrative advertising market is before Xmas (when people are doing their shopping), so that’s when they spend more money.
While the number of repeats has increased, this needs to be set against two factors:
(i) the total number of broadcast hours has also increased, as most channels broadcast through the night; and
(ii) the expansion of the the multi-channel market means fewer people see any one programme on first transmission. A repeat is only a repeat if you’ve not seen it before. I’d rather they repeated good programmes I’ve not seen yet, than showed new programmes that are poor quality…
If something is worth making and watching, then it is worth repeating.
I would rather have less original programming of high quality than lots of cheap drek. I might even have time to watch some of it.
This moaning on about repeats as if it were somehow an indicator of poor quality could be coming straight from the TV producers’ union.
If people didn’t want to see things more than once, DVDs of TV shows wouldn’t sell…
I’d rather watch a repeat of Inspector Morse than any amount of new I’m A Celebrity type stuff. I used to worry about whether The Great Escape was going to be on, but that’s not a problem now I’ve got it on DVD.
Perhaps Don should spend New Year’s Eve in Germany and see if he can catch Dinner for One – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One