Beginning to look a lot like LAST Christmas as more TV repeats than ever before
Christmas TV this year has more repeats then ever before.
During the two week festive period from December 20 until January 2, 729 of the 1,154 programmes aired on the main four channels will be repeats.
That means 63% of the shows will have been seen before.
This figure is up massively on last year, when 47.5% of shows were repeats.
The main offender is the BBC, which has been hit by cuts as it tries to save money and work within the licence fee.
BBC1’s Christmas Day features festive crackers like Miranda, Call The Midwife and EastEnders.
But it also has an Only Fools and Horses re-run, another airing of Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out, the film Gnomeo and Juliet and Shaun the Sheep - both which have been shown before.
On December 24 it has FOUR films that are repeats, Wall-E, Curse of the Were Rabbit, 101 Dalmatians and Toy Story 3.
It is also is re-showing a Vicar of Dibley episode and an old Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special.
BBC2 has 12 repeats on December 24 including Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, two episodes of Christmas Kitchen with James Martin, a 25th anniversary special of To the Manor Born and two old films Calendar Girls and Buster.
The same channel has nine repeats on Christmas Day including old favourite Dad’s Army, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol and another Christmas episode of To the Manor Born.
Over the whole period, BBC1 has 47 percent repeats, while BBC2 has 74 percent.
Whilst BBC2 relied on a similar amount of re-runs in 2013, last year BBC1 had just 30 percent repeats.
A TV source said: “This is a clear sign that the BBC is having to tighten the purse strings.
“Gone are the days of making dozens of huge big budget shows to play out in the festive period.
“They have to pick and choose a few gems and then rely on showing Christmas hits again, some which aired as recently as 12 months ago.”
Over on ITV, Christmas Day is filled with soaps Coronation Street, Emmerdale and a new two hour episode of Downton.
But the rest of the schedule looks less fresh, with 57 percent of shows being repeats.
These include Midsomer Murders and the Harry Potter films. This was up markedly on the 28 percent last year, although that was over a one-week period.
Channel 4 has 72 percent of programmes as repeats – up from 59 per cent last year.
