Christmas TV Listings (2020)

Reading time: 2 minutes...

We’ve all got different ‘triggers’ for when ‘Christmas’ officially begins. For many, it’s probably when the Supermarkets start displaying their Christmas lines! But that’s obscenely early, so how about…
…that first Christmas lunch?
…when the John Lewis Christmas Ad appears?
…or receiving your first Christmas Card? 😁

For TV lovers obsessives like me, it’s probably when the BBC Christmas TV ‘ident’ appears for the very first time, promoting the corporation’s festive offerings (a quick aside: there are FIVE different idents for 2020, and this year they were first seen on the 29th November — watch them HERE).

In this house, THE big event is when the Christmas double-issues of Radio Times and TV Times first go on sale. Normally that’s around the first or second week in December (although in recent years, that’s varied a bit). This year, I picked ours up right on cue, at the local Tesco’s on the 8th! 😁

I think my love of these two publications is a throwback to my childhood, when Dad used to bring them home after finishing work for Christmas. As a family, like many, we loved Christmas – and more especially Christmas TV (first, in black & white, then colour, on just three channels, then four, then five – then hundreds!) Back then, there was no remote control, so Dad’s choice normally ‘won’, but that didn’t cause any issues as TV was more family-friendly back then – The Generation Game anyone??? To add to the fun, in those days, there was also frequent positioning and re-positioning of the aerial to ensure the best pic! 😁

With the two magazines taking pride of place in the lounge, our first job back then was to painstakingly search through the schedules, taking it in turns to circle our favourite programmes.

It’s much the same now — except we use a highlighter pen or just go online… or just check our phones to look for the best shows!!! What progress ehh!? …or maybe not! 🙄


The ‘Double Issue’ Covers 2020

The Radio Times: 292 pages/£5.00
(Same page count as last year, +5p price increase compared to 2019)

The TV Times: 196 pages/£4.25
(Same page count as last year, +25p increase compared to 2019)

These days, both publications are massive (page-count wise) mainly because they both list more-or-less the same information. Why’s that? Well, for younger readers here, back in the stone-age (up until 1990) RT listed only the BBC stuff (including the radio) whilst TVT covered the commercial channels. Fast forward to the now ‘satellite-TV age’, and you have both publications running into hundreds of pages. 😯

So, just like back-in-the-day, all that’s left to do now is to plough through them both, highlighter pen at the ready, and our Christmas TV preparations are sorted!

Merry Christmas! 🎅🎅

10 Years of Christmas Covers…

Keep Reading

PreviousNext

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *