Is Christmas TV dead? This was my first thought when I glimpsed the lineup for this year’s festive period. Once considered the pinnacle of primetime TV, Christmas Day 2025 features a wearying number of reruns and recaps. On Channel 4, you can catch a compilation of the best of this year’s Gogglebox. Switch over to the BBC and you can hunker down with, erm, a repeat of the Outnumbered Christmas special from last year. Or perhaps you prefer an old episode of QI or Only Connect. (Or, heaven forbid, the new seasonal special of Mrs Brown’s Boys.) I know the Strictly and Bake Off specials will likely be on in the background in my household – and a new Amandaland episode will have its adorers – but it feels like a bit of a stretch to call any of this appointment viewing.
Things are so bleak that the King’s speech is tipped to be the most-watched broadcast on Christmas. It’s hardly the most scintillating offering – it’s the monarch’s fourth such speech, deprived of any novelty factor, and he has always fallen far short of his predecessor’s public popularity anyway. But what, realistically, could best it? There’s no Doctor Who; no big Gavin & Stacey special this year to take the crown. While the BBC is holding back a few big hitters (including the return of The Night Manager, a one-off David Attenborough special, and the new season of The Traitors) for New Year’s Day, the rest of the festive schedule, spanning the desert period between Christmas and 1 January, is just as poor. It left me feeling like a bit of a Scrooge. And amid this lacklustre British lineup, the cultural encroachment from American streaming juggernauts seems harder than ever to stem.
