Christmas No. 1 TV Show 2025

I won't be after I bet on this

Rumour has it that trump is doing the Kings speech

If only!

There are a few notable missing actual runners.

365: CTM 4/6, Speech 2/1
Fred: CTM 9/4, Speech 10/11

Massive arb or am I missing something. Both ‘Top’ programme based on ratings?

365 are 7 day figures
everyone else is overnight figures

CTM usually does much better on 7 day figs,

I see, thank you. Well they let me have some shrapnel on it and then cut it to 5/4

My bet has got the speech cut to 11/10 and CTM pushed out to 9/10… so fill your boots with the 9/10 if you can get on bear

I've no chance with that lot, but thanks

2024

Gavin & Stacey 12.32m

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl 9.38m

The King (BBC, ITV, BBC News and Sky News) 6.82m (not including other channels)

Call the Midwife 4.42m

EastEnders 4.39m

Doctor Who 4.11m

Strictly Come Dancing 4.05m

EastEnders 3.98m

Tiddler 3.23m

The Weakest Link 3.05m

Betfair really needs to list the animated kids' stuff scheduled for Christmas Day, + Gladiators.

fwiw Celebrity Gladiators seems the wrong price to me at 150/1. This was a bit of a surprise ratings hit when it was relaunched:

Gladiators, Ready? Viewers, Ready? Yes indeed as 8.7 million tune into launch of new series on the BBC to date
The highly anticipated return of Gladiators is now confirmed as the biggest launch for a new Entertainment series in 7 years*


The fist 'celebrity' one in 2024 had a 28-day consolidated viewing figure of 6.5M viewers. But it was broadcast in the summer.

Last year, on 7 day consolidated Christmas Day:
– Gavin & Stacey (BBC One, 9pm) 19.1 million
- Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (BBC One, 6.10pm) 16.3 million
– Call the Midwife (BBC One, 8pm) 7.6 million
– Doctor Who (BBC One, 5.10pm) 5.9 million

This year, on consolidated, CtM is 1.9 (7.6M ly) and The King 1.9 (no chance imo).

This is the type of family viewing that might appeal on Christmas Day. The runners on it aren't all terrible.

Joe Wicks MBE
Sam Thompson
Nicola Adams
Vogue Williams

Worth a speculative at that price.

fyi the viewing figs on relaunch were outstanding for this era of broadcast telly. I suppose it's a bit of harmless nostalgia that kids can also watch.

The king need to sack him off. The previous one got much higher ratings

Ha yes well it's been #awks for the royals this year too. Though he had a healthy lead over what's running again this year, in 2024. There is juice in the overnight market, and a surprise is quite possible.

Betfair needs to list The Scarecrows' Wedding and Shaun The Sheep.

Just void if they win :)

Yesterday:

ITV1-The Royal Variety Performance 2025 ≈ 3.4m (27.2%)

So only 12.5 million people in the whole country were counted as watching live tv, at 8pm the last Sunday before Christmas. According to barb.

The winner of Christmas day this year will quite likely be the lowest ever.

Yeah. Sub 5 million looking likely

I've had a little dabble on Strictly Xmas special, mainly based on the fact that I and everyone else I know, would rather stick pins in our eyes than watching Charles bumbling away on Christmas day.

If the result wasn't known I might have given it a chance.

Call the midwife is a popular show but I've no idea of
schedules etc that are obviously key to this.

It will have a solid base of fans who will watch it.
And my lad (who's 9) told me that there is something meme related happening, so somehow the word is flying round YouTube about something for the kids to somehow know about the Strictly Xmas special. Whatever it is could certainly help it get extra viewers.

It's the presenters' last broadcast one, though obviously it was filmed and in the can ages ago. I'm not massively keen, the thing has ended after a seemingly neverending marathon, though it has a chance. The king is the right favourite, but it does feel like it's vulnerable and could be a year where the usual dynamics shift again. The king's advantage is that it is very short, traditional appointment to view on bbc, and the public can be quite contrarian when it comes to the monarchy stuff.

Not much would totally surprise me outside of itv winning!

Runners added

The monarchy's support is at an all time low now.
How long does someone need to view for it to be counted?

Betfair is settled on the overnight average.

I spose this is pretty much the only specials market these days with no insider corruption

Jungle was clean as a whistle. Somehow people thought backing Tom was a neat idea

I'm pretty sure most of the elims were dodgy. But I didn't watch any of the series until the last few episodes so could be wrong

Both EE and SCD have better timeslots than CTM this year, to me that feels like CTM shouldn't win on the overnight. Possible but it's invariably done much better on consolidated.

SCD was on at 3.55pm in 2024. Whilst that is a soft target for it this year, gives me hope for Gladiators. However, you'd prefer the SCD slot. SCD has a shot, Blobby.

The Wheel also has Matt Horne and Jo Page, may give it a bit of a boost, solid ratings usually and a lovely slot. It's quite interesting this year, so the king will win ha.

Which of them clashes with the big guest slot on Radio one, cos that's gonna lose 5 potential viewers from the pot

No chance when the king of comedy is in town ;)

The highlight of your day :)

Responding to you is certainly down there.

How exciting to have this back. I'm a bit more involved than I was originally anticipating!

I do struggle to see why scd is bigger than ctm on the overnights. Sure, ctm is 1/2 hour shorter these days, but it didn't get a big boost for that last year. Bullseye is much more easy viewing, but untested on 25/12. Perhaps a little more critical is that the bbc schedule was shifted around a bit in 2024 to accommodate the one off big beasts. Below is 2023, when scd wasn't too far away from the king. The scd forever stats showed that its share has held up well this year.





Final post on this anyway, good luck if getting involved, and Merry Christmas (even to you, Bobby )

Let's hope we both get a winner we both agree on tomorrow Cider
Merry Xmas to all.

Irrelevant, but Amandaland was brilliant

I doubt it has the audience to win yet, but same slot as last year's winner

So the news did 'win' Christmas Eve. At less than 2 million !

Thought the SCD special was pretty decent, and it was the 67 meme that reared it's ugly head in the end :/
Why was the market suspended from the day before?

The King ~ 6m
Scarecrows' Wedding - 4.4m
Strictly -4.3m
The Wheel - 3.7m
Call The Midwife - 3.4m
Gladiators - 3.2m
Amandaland - 3.1m
EastEnders (1)- 2.8m
The 1% Club - 2.7m
Weakest Link - 2.6m
Shaun The Sheep - 2.5m
EastEnders (2) - 2.2m
Christmas Bake Off -2.1m
Coronation Street - 1.9m
Emmerdale - 1.8m
Mrs Brown's Boys - 1.6m

Orf with his head! Presumably that is combined with the king, but won't fall below 4.4 on bbc1 alone :(

Whoever was betting CTM @2/1, thanks.

I did top up at 200/1 on Gladiators 7 day. Not out of it!

The King (BBC One) - 4.6m

The Scarecrows' Wedding (BBC One) - 4.4m

Strictly Come Dancing (BBC One) - 4.3m

Michael McIntyre's The Wheel (BBC One) - 3.7m

Call The Midwife (BBC One) - 3.4m

Gladiators (BBC One) - 3.2m

Amandaland (BBC One) - 3.1m

EastEnders (Part 1, BBC One) - 2.8m

The 1% Club (ITV1) - 2.7m

The Weakest Link (BBC One) - 2.6m

FFS

A resounding win for Charles Charlie Charles. Well done sir

On the bridal ;)

Gladiators consolidated around 50% on new year's day, with the early slot I'd be hopeful of at least matching that for Christmas day. CTM is obviously a very strong consolidator historically. 365 should keep the market running.

My youngest a gladiators fan but it gets lost imo. She's not gonna remember to watch on player, nobody will remind her. The more adult themed shows will I guess.

OK, in the spirit of Xmas I will ask her if she wants to watch it later :)

haha, cheers if your hh is feeding into barb!

If going down the list, king should be beat. scd possibly consolidates ok but was in a good slot this year. The wheel, quiz shows typically consolidate reasonably well. CTM traditionally very well, then Gladiators. In truth it I feel probably gets second or third, but I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of 200/1, and has a shot.

Looks like Scarecrow has taken 7d from Midwife

cracking market :)

Amandaland for the consolidated, on the post!

It was brilliant

I could have had 6 goes and not picked Amandaland. I would have also made CTM long odds on to beat Charlie on catch up. I knew it was going to be a big change this year, but scarecrow's wedding getting gubbed on ON and 7 day by two different broadcasts is somewhat galling Must have been very close to a skinner for 365.