[JMT1985]

I believe the BBC has always won out on Christmas day for a fair few years now. ITV probably decided it wasn’t worth it and just put in the bare minimum.

Maybe they’ve got some surprises for next year, maybe they just wanted to save a few quid.

This goes all the way back to the launch of ITV in 1955 when that Christmas they didn't really bother to provide anything too special for the Christmas period.

Problem for ITV is the advertising, their attitude is why waste their money on producing expensive Christmas television, when the ad revenue will be at it's lowest?

ITV since 1955 have always poured their money into their big programming in the autumn, and so when Christmas week comes, there is little left to use.

So, the original ITV companies who coordinated networking of ITV shows, decided the mantra for Christmas ITV would be cheap and cheerful.

On occasions, they did compete hard, but when they did, they usual got beaten by BBC One, however there were some Christmas times when ITV came close to beating BBC One, and even did, for example Christmas Day 1999.