It's the traditional Christmas media story that just keeps on giving. That's right, the shocking scandal of festive TV repeats. Fleet Street has already had one bite at the cherry this year, but can't resist another nibble after the Radio Times looked back on Christmas TV past. "As recently as 1972 … BBC1 showed no repeats at all," reports the Daily Express. "Twenty years later, on Christmas Day 1992, there was almost three hours of repeats on BBC1. During the channel's around-the-clock schedule this year, there will be more than four hours of repeats – a sixth of the day's programming." Four hours of Christmas Day repeats – shocking! Less surprisingly, the Express fails to mention that proprietor Richard Desmond's Channel 5 is pretty much all repeats on Christmas Day. The Daily Mail weighs in too. "There used to be far fewer repeats on Christmas Day," it says. "These have risen by 14% since 1992, to 225 minutes in total. There were no repeats at all in 1952 and 1972." Back in 1952, it doesn't add, there wasn't an awful lot of TV to repeat. At the risk of repeating ourselves, Merry Christmas!
