THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS TELLY PAST (part twenty five)

I don’t know whether the Christmas telly plays such a big part in the festivities as it once did. Certainly these days there are many, many more channels than in my three channel youth, but somehow there always seems to be less on that’s actually worth watching. That, and the fact that nowadays there are so many more ways of watching programmes at the times that you choose for yourself and also the modern scheduling style that means that there can be three or more opportunities to see a show on the day of transmission, as well as myriad repeats across the subsequent weeks means that there really doesn’t seem to be much left in the way of “event” television or so-called “unmissable” television any more, and, if you should “miss” a programme, it’s not like in the days before home video recorders where it would be gone “forever” (or at least until someone invents the idea of the “complete series box set” thirty years later).

So what have we learned (if anything) from this brief and rather pointless trawl through the pages telling us of the televisual treats of Christmases past? Well, I’ve learned that there are a lot of shows that I used to enjoy that I’ve almost completely forgotten about, that Noel Edmonds has featured in far more Christmas schedules than seems strictly necessary, and also that, contrary to popular opinion, quite a lot of seasonal programming isn’t half as “special” as it would have us believe.

I’m looking at you, Tarby and Edmonds… Stop smirking at the back there!

I’ve also noticed a few patterns (and not just on the Edmonds jumper) where the same shows appear in the same places for year after year, and that sometimes it would seem that the current schedulers are trying very hard to recreate the Christmases of their own youth perhaps a dozen or so years later by repeating sitcoms that they remember as having been hilarious, and then perhaps finding that they weren’t all that funny after all. Sometimes things only seem hilarious because of the time and the place that they happen in, or because you are the age you are when they happen. Sometimes it’s just a memory of a long lost relative roaring with laughter that makes you think fondly of Frank Spencer’s antics and not the antics themselves when you see them once again. Perhaps most of all, exploring those fading old pages of those long-forgotten TV guides has made me realise that a lot of the shows ran for far longer than I thought they did, or dated back to a year far earlier than I expected, and that certain popular beliefs about certain films being on every year are not quite as true as we like to think they are.

Another thing that has become increasingly apparent is how much the TV landscape has changed since I first started putting those otherwise rather ephemeral magazines aside way back in 1975. Not only have we moved from an era of three channels that didn’t even seem to feel the need to be even broadcasting for much of the day through to our current 24/7 multi-channel multimedia environment, but also many of the old style programmes for New Year’s Eve, or the religious content of Christmas morning seem to have been lost, or at least heavily diminished, across those thirty-odd years. Whether that’s a good thing or not, is not for me to say, but it is something to ponder upon as we reach another Christmas morning.

This year, the TV stations will still be pulling out all the stops to grab your attention away from the shiny new X-Box or the Wii, and I’m pretty sure that they’ll keep on trying no matter how the broadcasting landscape twists and turns as the years continue to unfold and the holiday season keeps on turning up long before you’re ready for it to (although, that could, of course, just be me…). I’m sure that today a fair old proportion of you will settle down to slowly digest the kind of quantity of vegetables that would keep the “Five-a-Day” gurus more than happy if only we could keep the impetus up throughout the year, in front of another of the “Best Christmases Walford’s Ever Had™” or this year’s “Doctor Who”, or perhaps “Downton Abbey”, or maybe “Darcey Bussell Dances Hollywood” or even the “Alan Carr: Chatty Man Christmas Special”  or whatever else you choose to “goggle” at on your particular choice of “box”, because that’s what we do and, for many of us, it’s what we’ve always done and, do you know what…? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So enjoy your Christmas telly this year, guilt-free and in the sure knowledge that you’re probably not the only one, wherever and whenever it is that you choose to actually watch it in this multi-platform, out-of-time universe in which we now live. Savour and enjoy all of those bright shiny new programmes because one day, they too will become the stuff of glowing nostalgia and fond, or perhaps not so fond, memory for other observers, some of which are not yet even born.

Happy viewing, and a Merry Christmas to one and all from this dark corner of Lesser Blogfordshire, which, you’ll no doubt feel comforted to learn, is currently being illuminated by the gentle, ever-changing flickering of the idiot box sitting in the corner of the living room and which remains very much the centre of life in these here parts.

TELLY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!