Are The Days Of Great Christmas Tv Now Over In The Uk?

There's no doubt that if you look at the Christmas TV schedules of recent years and compare them to the schedules from years ago, they are nowhere near as good as they used to be. I know this to be true because I've got numerous editions of the Christmas Radio Times going back many years. So why is this?

Well for a start the great Christmas institution that is Only Fools And Horses is no longer being made, so that is a big omission from the schedules. We also no longer have these big comedy shows to look forward to such as The Two Ronnies and Morecambe And Wise (although we can of course watch them being repeated every single year).

We also don't seem to have the big film premieres any more over Christmas. You used to be able to look forward to one or two blockbusters hitting our screens but the main channels don't seem to do this any more. In fact the five main terrestrial channels seem to have given up on Christmas altogether.

I guess it's understandable to a degree because they simply don't have the big budgets that they used to have due to reduced advertising revenues. They also have a lot of competition from the endless different digital channels that are now in most peoples' homes on platforms such as Freeview, Freesat and Sky.

As a result we see that a lot of the Christmas TV programs consist of repeats of classic shows from previous years, which are a much cheaper option. That's not necessarily a bad thing because some programs are worth showing again, but the trouble is that they seem to show the same old episodes every single year and it gets boring watching the same old shows every Christmas.

The sad truth of the matter is that we are unlikely to ever return to the classic Christmas TV schedules we used to have. There are simply too many channels nowadays so the major channels just don't seem to be interested in competing with them.

There's also the fact that the internet has completely changed all of our lives and we simply don't watch as much TV as we used to, even over Christmas. Even the best TV shows fail to attract the kind of audiences they used to, so it's difficult to justify spending lots of money on making high quality TV shows over Christmas.

There are still a few hidden gems on TV this year such as Gavin and Stacey and The Royle Family, but sadly we are not making that many great TV shows any more. The ones we do make tend to be shown over the rest of year so all we are left with are the same old repeats and the same old films that we've seen loads of times already.