[bananaman]

It seems now the premise for Christmas idents is to start on or near December 1st - with age, it seems Christmas is now all about the lead up to the big day and not the day itself - this is of course commercially wise, as December 1st to around 22nd is when the big cash is splashed out on Christmas by most families.

Given this is now the case, I think a decent compromise would be to introduce Christmas idents at the start of December but only before Christmas related programmes and then only expand to be before every programme a few days prior to Christmas Day.

So the inevitable repeats of old Mrs Brown's Boys and Gavin and Stacey specials in the first few weeks of December would have Christmas idents before them but the News and Bargain Hunt weeks out from Christmas Day wouldn't.