A feast of Christmas repeats

If Christmas Day TV feels a bit familiar this year there's a good reason - repeats.

On a day when people devote more time to watching the box than any other, terrestrial channels are serving up a record number of rerun shows and films.

BBC2 is showing 24 programmes, 17 of which are repeats and two of which are old films - My Fair Lady, and Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon.

A spokeswoman for the channel defended the move, arguing that viewers want to see old programmes again.

"There's a perception that a repeat is a bad thing. But a lot are programmes that people really want to see again. When The Office was repeated last Christmas, it did very well in the ratings," she said.

Other repeats include a tour around Prince Charles's home, Highgrove: A Prince's Legacy, and Around The World In 80 Days. The channel has only one big premiere - Belleville Rendezvous, the acclaimed French animated film.

And three days later, the channel has risked ridicule from analysts to schedule in the ultimate but perennial TV Christmas movie, The Great Escape.

"There is so much else going on in viewers' lives on Christmas Day that it's now seen as a waste to schedule one of your bighitting, expensive programmes. It is too risky," said Dorothy Hobson, a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at Wolverhampton University.

"It's a better use of the licence fee to wait until a few days later or a cold January Sunday evening to roll out your big guns." There are plenty of re-runs to be found on the other terrestrial channels.

BBC1 is re-showing a festive edition of Morecambe and Wise from the mid-Seventies and the Pierce Brosnan movie The Thomas Crown Affair. On ITV1, viewers can settle down to the Christmas Day Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, which it last aired 11 months ago.

An ITV spokeswoman said: "We believe we have a very strong Christmas Day line-up."

Channel 4's big Christmas Day premiere is the feel-good film Amelie, and there's also a smattering of repeats including comedy series Friends and Smack The Pony.

Five's big film is comedy National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation from 1989, and there are documentary repeats during the day.