Bad news for people looking forward to watching TV in Milton Keynes this Christmas

Research has shown that 50% of the Christmas television shows will be repeats this year.

The study was carried out by digital board games publisher Marmalade Game Studio and covered Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV1, BBC2 and BBC1.

They found 72% of the programmes aired on Channel 5 on will be repeats. The corresponding figures for Channel 4, ITV1, BBC2 and BBC1 will be 55%, 41%, 57% and 21% respectively.

Together the channels will show 403 programmes across Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and 202 will be repeats.

Overall, Christmas Day will be the worst for repeats with 55% of programmes having aired before, compared to 50% for Boxing Day and 46% for Christmas Eve.

Michael Willis, co-CEO at Marmalade Game Studio, said: “Watching TV over Christmas as a family is one of the highlights of the festive season, but with so many repeats being aired, it can be easy to become bored. Playing board games can be a great way to tackle this and bring families together."

He added: “We have recently introduced a new Bubble feature, which more than a million families have signed up to, helping people stay in touch by video chat, allowing gamers to add friends and family to group chats, start games from these, and video chat whilst playing.”

Christmas 2020 saw a 460% increase in downloads of Marmalade Game Studios games, which includes Monopoly, Taboo, Cluedo, Clue, Jumanji and The Game of The Game of Life, when compared to the average number for a typical three-day period in the previous six months.

The publisher believes ‘boredom’ in watching TV repeats was a key factor for the increase in downloads.

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