TV Cream's Christmas Log 2024
Since the start of the century we’ve been reviewing the year’s Christmas Day TV for firstly the late, lamented Offthetelly and then, until last year, the late, lamented TV Cream. We’re sure one day they’ll be back online somewhere (though before that happens we should probably rewrite the 2000 one as we did it before the day and rather overestimated the appeal of Titanic) and, like an annual for a long-folded comic, we’re happy to keep the tradition going here on your new-look Creamguide. So this was Christmas 2024...
Despite the rise and rise of streaming, the Christmas Day schedules continue to be scrutinised and much-anticipated like no other, and receive much criticism if the BBC, especially, have failed to put together a line-up that matches the idealised perfect Christmas Days of the past that exist in people’s memories. But the line between a brilliant and a middling schedule can be such a fine one, and indeed so often the result of sheer serendipity. If the likes of David Renwick or Caroline Aherne were feeling suitably inspired that year to write a Christmas special, that would usually be a good day. If David Jason or Victoria Wood had a schedule clash and didn’t have time to make anything for the Beeb this time, that would be a bit of a letdown.
And so in 2024, when both Nick Park and the writing partnership of Ruth Jones and James Corden realised they had the idea, the time and the people available to make new instalments of two of the biggest things on British TV, it was obviously going to be a very good day for BBC1.
As The Fast Show memorably illustrated (“just a tiny amount”), a new adventure for Wallace and Gromit wasn’t something you could knock off in a couple of weeks. But it had been sixteen years since the dynamic duo were last on our screens, A Matter of Loaf and Death at Christmas 2008 being the most watched show of the day and indeed the year – in fact, nothing had rated higher on Christmas Day since. This time they were back in Vengeance Most Fowl, and once more it was met with absolutely universal acclaim. A world premiere of a new instalment of a series beloved by almost everyone in the UK and a huge hit across the planet? This really was a Christmas present for BBC1.
Just that would have perked up the schedules compared to previous years and seen Christmas Day 2024 filed as one of the good ones. But this year BBC1 also had a new and apparently final episode of Gavin and Stacey as well. Last time round at Christmas 2019 they’d pulled in the biggest non-sport audience on British TV for over a decade with 11.6 million watching on the night, increasing to 18.5 million when all those watching recordings and streams in 28 days were included (let alone the umpteen more who have watched it since). This time round, remarkably the overnight figure went up to 12.3 million – and this in an era when it seemed like the only way for linear viewing figures was down – so the chances of it beating that huge figure seem pretty great. Although it’s not an especially valid comparison, we’re now talking Morecambe and Wise-sized figures here – alright, not everyone’s watching it at the same time, but with such a huge choice of viewing these days, we can be pretty sure that everyone’s watching it because they really want to.
These two shows made for a stupendous Christmas Day for BBC1, though it’s worth remembering that they were so special because they’re so rare, and if we were getting new instalments every year the novelty might be wearing off a bit. Hard to see how the BBC can top this next year, though it’s obviously not for the want of trying and brand new instalments of two of the most beloved series in recent TV history after years of anticipation are clearly going to be a bit thin on the ground in some years.
But that’s for another year and in the meantime BBC1 could celebrate one of the most successful days in its history, as it absolutely thrashed all other channels and for seemingly the first time ever ended up with a complete clean sweep of the day’s top ten. OK, so the two big shows did a lot of the heavy lifting, but all families now had the chance to look elsewhere if they weren’t enjoying what was being served up, and the rest of the line-up included some shows that in more fallow years would have been the main attraction in their own right.
The morning brought, as ever, Breakfast, cartoons, religion and films old-ish (Toy Sory 3) and new (Minions: The Rise of Gru). Just before The King came another new animation based on a Julia Donaldson book. Fair to say Tiddler was rather overshadowed by the other animation later that day, but these specials are still worth celebrating – produced to the highest standards and with a stellar voice cast, this was the twelfth adaptation and like the previous eleven will continue to do wonderful business for years to come in filling every available slot over Christmas and being watched by kids again and again.
In previous years The King (and his predecessor) had been the most watched programme of the day, though this year it could only take third place – and as in previous years that would be the case even if you only counted those watching on BBC1, let alone all the other channels. For the first time in a long while it wasn’t followed by a film premiere, the usual animated antics a bit later in the evening this time around. Instead it was The Weakest Link making its first ever appearance on Christmas Day BBC1. Perhaps surprisingly even at the height of its success and ubiquity two decades ago it had never appeared in such a hallowed slot. Revived a few years ago with Romesh Ranganathan in charge, it was never going to hit the heights it did in its pomp but it was a reliable performer for BBC1 and here it made for agreeable diversion to dip in and out of during the washing up.
The Christmas Strictly followed in its earliest ever slot of just before four o’clock, though once more this light-as-a-feather fun doubtless helped many families ease into the early evening. Then came the second Christmas outing for the rebooted Doctor Who. Last year’s instalment was the first proper adventure for Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, so this year’s was always going to be less of a draw, and once more you can wonder if one of Steven Mofatt’s patented timey-wimey scripts can withstand the distractions of a typical Christmas teatime. The perfect family viewing continued with Wallace and Gromit at ten past six.
It had been a long time since EastEnders had been the main attraction of the big day, but this year it got a huge Christmas gift as it was split into two parts for the first time in a long time, and followed Wallace and Gromit at 7.30, as well as Gavin and Stacey at 10.30, ensuring a huge audience would be about for the first few minutes at least. No surprise most of them didn’t stick around, but the second episode at least pulled in the soap’s biggest audience for a while and, in an era where the soap rating wars have moved from which is pulling in the biggest audience to which is enduring the slowest decline, that’s not to be sniffed at.
Also split in half was Call The Midwife, the traditional Christmas Day instalment this year shown in two parts with the second on Boxing Day. This series has now been on the 25th every year since 2012 and while it’s perhaps always seemed a bit out of place, it continues to pull in impressive figures and is always among the most-watched shows of the day. After Gavin and Stacey and the second EastEnders came another long-runner, though Mrs Brown’s Boys is nowhere near the ratings juggernaut it used to be and its 11pm placing suggests, like many visits to relatives over Christmas, our jaunts to Finglas are now very much down to obligation rather than any particular desire. Still, at that hour it was pretty much out of the way of anyone hoping to avoid it, it was another new show, and indeed if you include the news bulletins, BBC1 was all-new and all-British from 2.15pm to midnight. As far as we can work out, only 1985 featured a longer continuous span of new British content (from 11.30am to 10.40pm) and at a time when budgets are stretched to the limit and the Beeb are spending increasing amounts of time justifying its existence, that is something to shout about.
So what of ITV? Well, even in BBC1’s fallow years you wouldn’t necessarily expect them to prosper, such is their reluctance to really go to town on Christmas Day when all their best content would be more valuable earlier in December when they can sell adverts around it. As ever, the aim is to get through the day in the most cost-effective fashion.
Since starting in lockdown the Christmas morning instalments of Good Morning Britain, Lorraine and This Morning have become a regular fixture, which might look a bit dull in the schedules but it’s hardly as if the mornings were brimming with new content and ideas before they arrived there, and those who rely on them every day for company would doubtless have been pleased to see them. Following those up to The King was festive food from James Martin and Ainsley Harriott. Hard to imagine anyone still after culinary inspiration at two o’clock on Christmas afternoon but these shows mixing cookery and chat were now filling up much of the schedules every weekend. After The King was Home Alone 2, after the original was on Channel 4 the previous evening.
It's probably fair to suggest that we’re not in a golden age of light entertainment, given how many old formats have been rebooted in recent years. We’d already seen one today with The Weakest Link, and after its success in 2024 you wouldn’t count out the revived Gladiators as already being pencilled in for this day in 2025. But it’s ITV who seem to embraced the back catalogue with most gusto this year, though with mixed results – Deal Or No Deal was a decent-sized daytime hit, You Bet was as unexceptional as the original run and the weird transatlantic Wheel of Fortune revival was a baffling vehicle for Graham Norton. No chance of trying to jazz up the latest revival, though, as it’s the homeliest format going – Bullseye! With Freddie Flintoff as host (seemingly an ill-at-ease Lancastrian is required), this debuted in the classic Sunday teatime tinned peaches slot three days earlier before getting a repeat here, pulling in similar-sized audiences in both slots and presumably doing enough to justify a full series. We’d have to wait and see if a nostalgic one-off in front of a half-cut audience on Christmas Day can do the business elsewhere, though.
For so long the big guns on Christmas Day, both Emmerdale and Corrie were totally overshadowed this time round. A few decades ago the idea of Coronation Street and EastEnders being shown at the same time would have been front page news, but it happened here and nobody seemed to notice. The Christmas Corrie did make the headlines as Helen Worth bowed out after fifty years as Gail, though it’s a bit of a shame she did so on an episode that passed most people by completely. Perhaps oddly the soaps were flung out against Wallace and Gromit while at eight o’clock The Chase, with one of umpteen episodes on ITV over the festive period, seemed to have a much easier ride. The big attraction here was surely Alexander Armstrong, of its sworn teatime rival Pointless, as one of the celebrity contestants.
As token opposition to Gavin and Stacey, ITV offered up a franchise that had been a big player for them on Christmas Days past with the premiere of the latest Downton Abbey film. This was certainly sensible counter-programming, seemingly appealing to a very different audience - but it didn’t even get a million viewers. OK, so it was in a pretty thankless slot, most people who have wanted to see it will have seen it, and ITV will get plenty of value from it through numerous reruns on linear TV and on streaming, but if anything illustrates the lack of interest in movie premieres these days it’s that.
Elsewhere the smaller channels were in familiar form – BBC2 is where you’d find your ballet, your classic comedy (including Morecambe and Wise from 1977), your black and white films and your prestige arts documentary, in this case a new profile of Roger Moore, while BBC4 made a trip to Glyndebourne. Channel Four wheeled out the familiar festive films, including Raiders of the Lost Ark exactly forty years after it had premiered on ITV. A week after Chris McCausland had won Strictly he gave the Alternative Christmas Message to talk about the need for accessibility, and with Bake-Off and the Pottery Throwdown the day before and day after respectively, the one new show in primetime was a festive edition of The Piano. Channel Five once more played pop pretty much all day, though took at break in mid-afternoon to play The Railway Children Return, the belated sequel to a Christmas favourite.
For BBC1, then, Christmas Day was a triumph, their most successful in years. The obvious question is what happens next year – there aren’t many other shows with such universal love and appeal where a revival would make similar waves (Blackadder? Fawlty Towers?). It’s hard to see the huge ratings we got this time ever being repeated at Christmas again, so maybe this really is the end of an era. But as we’ve seen in Christmas TV over the years, you can never really say it’s all over.