The Daily Mail's love of stories about Christmas TV repeats knows no bounds. Readers may remember that the paper's whinge about small-screen repeats has become a cast-iron annual festive tradition and this year appeared earlier than ever – in November, no less. The paper excelled itself by managing to squeeze out yet another story on the topic today, this time focusing on films (rather than TV programmes, per se). "A season of repeats for the TV film fan," it begins. "97% of movies on television over the festive period will be repeats, research shows." But how many films on terrestrial and digital television are premieres in a normal week? Not many, Monkey would wager. The Mail really takes the biscuit with the "research" revealing that "99% of films on satellite" will be repeats. Hold on, you mean satellite film channels are doing what they do all year round – showing almost entirely repeats at Christmas? The low down, dirty swine! "The only satellite premieres are on Christmas Eve, and each of these will be repeated six times over three days." Yeah, it's called Sky Movies Premiere, and it always gives new films their first UK TV airing on a Friday (Christmas Eve this year – Christmas Day in 2009) and repeats them over the following six – not just three – days. At least the Mail didn't have to bother doing the research, the stats having been put together by "DVD rental service LoveFilm". As one reader comments below the Mail story, "This is a repeat as we already know this." LoveMail, anyone?
