Top Christmas Day TV

Doctor Who 5/4
Eastenders 15/8
Downton Abbey 5/1
The Gruffalos Child 16/1
Corrie 20/1

The bookies have this as a bit of a 2 horse race between the BBC1 stalwarts, but I see a bit of value in the Downton Abbey price.

Scheduling wise it doesnt look ideal - Doctor Who is up against very little else at 7pm, while Eastenders and Downton both go at 9pm and so will probably cut each others throats.

However DA has the advantage of being the freshest show of the 3. It is already commanding huge ratings this year (nearly 11m in November, compared to an Eastenders 2011 high of 10.8m) and I think it will pick up quite a large # of casual viewers on Christmas Day who are tuning in to find out what the fuss is about.

Keeping stakes small because its in the same time slot as EE, but 2pts Downton Abbey @ 5/1 with Bet365.

Shit its 5/1 WOW i saw a thread on betfair regarding this

http://community.betfair.com/specials/go/thread/view/94178/28730057/xmas-tv-market

There all bigging up this downtown abbey i wont be watching it as ive no interest in it and ill be watching Eastenders instead, Only thing troubling with regards to backing DA is obviously its on same time as EE so people will Sky Plus one or the other, EE has the reveal of the stalker etc and the other big thing is DW which always gets good viewers Christmas Day, GL though i think it will be close between the top two

2008
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death - BBC1, 8.30pm - 14.25m
Doctor Who: 'The Next Doctor' - BBC1, 6pm - 11.71m
EastEnders - BBC1, 9pm - 11.47m
The Royle Family - BBC1, 9.30pm - 9.98m
EastEnders - BBC1, 8pm - 9.89m

2009
EastEnders - BBC One, 8pm - 10.86 million,
The Royle Family - BBC One, 9pm - 10.23 million,
Doctor Who - BBC One, 6pm - 10.03 million,
Gavin & Stacey - BBC One, 10pm - 9.17 million,
The Gruffalo - BBC One, 5.30pm - 8.79 million,

2010
EastEnders - BBC One 8pm - 11.4m
Come Fly With Me - BBC One 10pm - 10.3m
Doctor Who – BBC One 6pm - 10.3m
Royle Family - BBC One 9pm - 9.9m
Strictly Come Dancing – 9.4m

Looking at the contenders fro 2011..

Doctor Who - has never topped the figures, but the Eastenders/Downton & Strictly/Coronation Street clash, could bring victory.

EastEnders - Has topped the figures regularly. Starts and 9pm and clashes with Downton Abbey.

Downton Abbey - A two hour monster edition. Will people not just Sky+ this to avoid what will be an xmas pay off for ITV's advertising coffers? On the positive side, 11+ million viewers is not out of the ordinary. Can it compete with EastEnders though? Season two finale attracted 10.5 million.

Strictly - Has been beating Eastenders in the weekly figures by about 2 million. The Eastenders/Downton clash, could bring victory, but Strictly doesn't usually compete with Coronation Street. Also welcomes back Russel Grant.

Ab-Fab - Discount. Only every attracted 7-8 million.

2010 - Coronation Street's lowest 'xmas' viewership was the Christmas Day episode, when up against Strictly.

Just to add my own thoughts -

I actually think Strictly is the 'value' bet at 17.0, given that it only has Coronation Street to beat, which it accomplished with ease last year. I'll also take a punt on Doctor Who, as Family Fortunes offers no competition what so ever!

Good Luck All! Here's to a celebratory cold sprout.

Yep it's an Xmas special Punter. I'll be honest and say I've never watched it myself, but can't go a week at work without hearing a lot of people chatting about it.

If I was ever going to tune in and check out what all the fuss was about it would be on Christmas night when collapsed in front of the telly, and the bet is really counting on others doing the same. There's very little fresh content in this years Christmas Day schedule but DA is the one that catches the eye...no one will be talking about Doc W/Eastenders in the run up to Sunday as they are on every year.

Doc W is a worthy favourite but given the uncertainty over how many DA could pull it looks a lively outsider at 5/1.

Ps good point re: the ads Gav. BBC shows certainly have an advantage when it comes to Christmas Day, as borne out by the stats above(and the unbelievable figures for Come Fly with me!)

Got my eye on a small bet on the Guffalo too. 6:30pm could turn out to be a great slot to capture a post dinner boost and can only think it will improve on the 2009 figs and atleast top 10m.

I remember tuning into Poirot last year and being thoroughly pissed off at the frequency of adverts. It's distracting. And for a Poirot aficionado like myself, the two hours felt like a marathon.

Who has Doctor Who got going up against them?

Dr Who has All Star Family Fortunes up against it and has never impacted on previous xmas ratings.

How is the audience for a programme calculated?

Programme audiences are calculated by averaging the audience of all minutes covered by the programme transmission, from the start-time of the programme until the end-time of the programme, but excluding any embedded commercial breaks and promotions.

http://www.barb.co.uk/about/faq?_s=4

=============

I think it'll be a Doctor Who/The Gruffalo's Child/EastEnders/Downton Abbey/Absolutely Fabulous 1-2-3-4-5 finish myself.

Emmerdale traditionally does poorly on Christmas Day as does Coronation Street for some very bizarre reason.

I think 'Downton Abbey' vs. the tag-team of 'EastEnders' & 'Absolutely Fabulous' will gobble each other up for around 9m a show. The last half-hour of DA against 'Michael McIntyre...' could prove decisive though.

As a comparison as to what happened last year, 'The Royle Family' & 'Come Fly With Me' got 10.2m & 10.3m respectively against 'Poirot' over on ITV1 which only got 4.3m so there's probably around 15-18m viewers up for grabs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12080132

...a blowout like that that won't happen this year. It's gonna be a very close contest depending how you think it'll play out. How much hype for Downton Abbey is there!? It's 6/4 to beat EastEnders (which is 2/1 on) over at Sky Bet to get the biggest audience of the two TV shows.

Wallace & Gromit proved that getting the kiddie audience can be a winner as they snabbed a surprise Christmas Number one back in 2008 so The Gruffalo's Child will be a strong runner but Emmerdale should eat into it's audience. The ITV1 soap got 7.8m last year against Doctor Who last year which got 10.7m..

I think Doctor Who has an almost clear run this year as it's up against All Star Family Fortunes (that got 4.7m up against EastEnders' 11.7m last year). DW has been bet down from 3/1 into 'evens' or less and the seasoned TV ratings punters are probably banking on this match-up giving the good Doctor Who an advantage.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s2/eastenders/news/a294814/eastenders-tops-christmas-day-ratings.html

Elsewhere, Strictly Come Dancing will be up against Coronation Street yet again and they cancelled each other out last year. SCD got 9.6m and Corrie got 9.1m. It'll be very similar numbers again this year.

Last year's TV schedule:

BBC1 Christmas Day
11AM: The Santa Clause 3
12:25PM: Madagascar
1:45PM: BBC News
2PM: Top of the Pops
3PM: The Queen
3:10PM: Shrek The Third
4:30PM: The Gruffalo
5PM: BBC News
5:10PM: The One Ronnie
6PM: Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol
7PM: Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special
8PM: EastEnders
9PM: The Royle Family
10PM: Come Fly With Me

ITV1 Christmas Day
10:55AM: The Santa Clause
12:55PM: ITV News
1:10PM: The Polar Express
3PM: The Queen
3:10PM: How The Grinch Stole Christmas
5PM: ITV News
5:15PM: You’ve Been Framed
6PM: Emmerdale
7PM: Coronation Street
8PM: All Star Family Fortunes
9PM-11PM: Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express

This year's TV schedule:

BBC1 Christmas Day
11:40AM Morecambe and Wise - Christmas Show 1971
12:25PM: BBC News
12:35PM: Kung Fu Panda
2PM: Top of the Pops Christmas Special
3PM: The Queen
3:10PM: Monsters vs Aliens
4:35PM: BBC News
4:50PM: Ratatouille
6:30PM: The Gruffalo's Child
7PM: Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
8PM: Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special
9PM: EastEnders
10PM: Absolutely Fabulous
10:30PM: Michael McIntyre's Christmas Comedy Roadshow

ITV1 Christmas Day
11AM: Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
1:05PM: ITV News
1:15PM: Aladdin
3PM: The Queen
3:10PM: Happy Feet
5:10PM: ITV News
5:30PM: You’ve Been Framed
6PM: Emmerdale
7PM: All Star Family Fortunes (The Only Way Is Essex vs. Benidorm)
8PM: Coronation Street
9PM: Downton Abbey
11:05PM: ITV News
11:20PM: Benidorm Christmas Special

Btw tv ratings are calculated based on a panel of about 4-5000 people who have special sets and need to press a button to indicate they are watching, rather than across everyone.

Took 46 on the Gruffalo on betfair.

Think alot of people judging by twitter and facebook etc were watching Eastenders tonight

Hmmm. 'EastEnders' could only manage 7.84m on Christmas Eve.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news...-help-bbc-one-lead-christmas-eve-ratings.html

Some guy from The Mirror thinks 'EastEnders' or 'Downton Abbey' has won Christmas Day. I doubt EE suddenly gets less than 7.5m and DA somehow got 11m+ and neither 'Doctor Who' or 'The Gruffalo's Child' got 10m+ but who knows!?

https://twitter.com/#!/mirrorjeffers/status/151045103660699648

Figures are usually leaked/released around 8-10am.

I had a casual eye on twitter tonight - Eastenders was certainly showing up much more strongly, but then I suppose it would.

The Gruffalo is by far my best result on this one now - could resist the 50+ available last night. Even touched as high as 80. DW should take this one given it's open goal but the Gruffalo might just have fallen at the ideal time as millions of families were finishing up their dinner and set the tv to something neutral on BBC1 while they decided what to watch for the night.