World gears up for a season of repeats

Our favourites may differ but every country celebrating Christmas has its own traditional Christmas-themed TV

NOT SO very long ago, Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life(pictured) was considered as little more than a footnote in the director's career. The film was not a box office success, placing 26th in revenues for 1947, nor was it a critical smash. It failed to take home any of the five Academy Awards for which it was nominated. How does such a property become a belated hit with critics and crowds alike? The answer may be found in two-and-a-half mostly unlovely words: Christmas repeats.

THE US

This week in cinemas, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmaspays homage to A Christmas Story, another film that has gained in popularity since its initial lacklustre theatrical run in 1983. An American TV staple, director Bob Clark's portrait of "an all-American Christmas", now plays in 24-hour marathons coast-to-coast, yet remains a comparative rarity on this side of the Atlantic. Another quintessentially American title, A Charlie Brown Christmas, has been winning ratings since 1965.

GERMANY

At least A Christmas Storyhas the word Christmas in the title. Nobody can be sure how Earth Girls are Easybecame Russia's favourite New Year film or why the Germans insist on watching something called Dinner for One.

An 18-minute farce in which English aristocrats sit down to dinner, Lauri Wylie's decidedly Anglocentric sketch is broadcast across different networks in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, South Africa and the Faroe Islands on either December 23rd or New Year's Eve, and holds a spot in the Guinness Book of Recordsas the most repeated show of all time.

It has never been screened in Britain or America where the repetition of the punch line “The same procedure as every year, James”, loses something in the lack of translation.

BRITAIN

Across the water, Britons like to mark the Christmas season by unfastening their belts in front of the Queen. The reigning monarch has been broadcasting a Christmas message to the Commonwealth since George V first took to the airwaves of the British Broadcasting Corporation Empire Service in 1932. Traditionalists may also plump for The Great Escapeor The Sound of Musicplaying on a loop.

SWEDEN, DENMARK AND FINLAND

Nothing says Christmas quite like ancient Donald Duck cartoons, right? From All of Us to All of You, a Walt Disney anthology dating from 1958, has been pulling in massive viewing figures across Nordic countries for decades. Each nation tunes in on Christmas Eve, though regional variations abound. Danes favour the 1942 short Donald's Snow Fight, whereas their Finnish equivalents watch The Small One, a 1978 short detailing the travails of a scrawny Nativity donkey. In Sweden, where Donald Duck is favoured, the show is called Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul("Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas").

JAPAN

Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan but they do mark New Year's Eve with their own answer to the Eurovision. Every year the most popular acts drawn from modern (J Pop) and traditional (enzo) music gather together for a musical battle of the sexes known as Kôhaku Uta Gassen, literally Red and White Song Battle. The red team is comprised of female artists; the white team is made up of the boys. Viewing figures have declined in recent years but the event remains the biggest musical TV event of the year.

AUSTRALIA

TV schedules Down Under look much like our own, with repeats of Miracle on 34th Streetand National Lampoon's Christmas Vacationfalling either side of the Queen's speech. The biggest viewing figures, however, belong to the Test Match on Boxing Day, and the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. In Australia, sports aren't just for Christmas, you know.