Christmas crackers in short supply on traditional TV channels

Endless clip shows have a way of creating fake television memories, but I will swear on the faltering life of my Virgin Media box that on Christmas Day in 1986, I saw Den serve divorce papers on Angie right before the EastEnders' "doof-doofs" kicked in. This divorce thing they had in other countries certainly seemed dramatic.

The episode was watched by an astonishing 30.1 million viewers in the UK, a figure that stomps all over the kind of audience that can be expected today.

There is a slight caveat to the number, as it includes those who tuned in for the Sunday afternoon repeat, but Den’s menacing revenge on lying Angie remains a high-water mark for mass-audience television. Nothing says Christmas like Den calmly asking Angie if he can have a word.

For a single-transmission, single-channel broadcast, the record for a British television programme arrived a decade later, in 1996, when more than 24 million people watched Del Boy and Rodney become millionaires. This episode of Only Fools and Horses also went out over the Christmas period – the one time of year when human hibernation is officially approved.

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Of the 20 most-watched-ever shows in UK television history, only one is from this century, and that's the Christmas Day special of Only Fools and Horses from 2001, watched by 21 million. By the end of it – spoiler alert – the Trotters were no longer millionaires.

Rub their hands

All channel controllers want for Christmas is one of these big, old-time festive crackers. They can rub their hands, Del Boy-style, in anticipation of such a programme all they like, but the odds are not in their favour. In 2015, no single UK broadcast was watched by more than 7 million as it was broadcast.

The finale of Downton Abbey, the most-viewed festive programme in the UK last year, admittedly managed to add a chunky 4 million in catch-up viewing to its original figure of 6.9 million. But its total of 10.9 million is still spectacularly shy of what would have been garnered by a Christmas ratings-topper 20 years ago.

It is not that television has declined in popularity per se, but rather that the long-heralded multi-channel, multi-platform market is the new norm. The audience has splintered and may not even be coming together for Christmas with quite the same enthusiasm.

In Ireland, however, the phenomenon of a national "television hearth" remains remarkably solid even in this age of media fragmentation, with the annual performance of the Late Late Toy Show reflecting some extraordinary unity and conservatism in our television tastes. The Late Late Toy Show's share of the available audience watching television in its time slot typically exceeds 70 per cent and this year it came in at a dominant 77 per cent.

New saviour

This consistent performance – the last eight

Late Late Toy Shows

are the eight most-watched programmes of this century – means festive viewing peaks early in Ireland, but in recent years, December 25th has been blessed with a new saviour

. Mrs Brown’s Boys

is the undisputed Mammy of Christmas Day television in Ireland (and it was also the number two show in the UK last Christmas). Considering what else is on offer, it will likely emerge triumphant again this year.

The first of two specials is scheduled for Christmas Day on RTÉ One and BBC One at 10.25pm/10.30pm, which for me is a little late to be "contemplating yet another mince pie", as the RTÉ press release suggested viewers might do as they tune in; but hey, it's Christmas, so each to their own indigestion.

The bawdy farce of Mrs Brown's Boys is old-fashioned, but at least these are newly produced entertainments. In recent years, the most-watched show on RTÉ2 for the month of December has been the Father Ted Christmas special from 1996, and yes, Ted and Dougal can be seen getting lost in the lingerie department on RTÉ2 again this year.

Childhood habits

Nostalgia for festive television is in abundance. We like to revert to childhood habits at Christmas, gravitating towards programmes we remember watching with our families when we were younger, when if there was a second screen in the house, it was permanently located in the Arctic wing. Broadcasters chase the goodwill factor with cheering, whimsical and occasionally bittersweet specials knowing they will be savaged if they get the tone wrong.

But there is, inevitably, a touch of the golden-oldies about the sentiment, and a sense that something – call it the 20th century – is sliding away.

The bumper festive edition of the Radio Times opens up to a double-page advertisement for Netflix, which declares it "the time of year to indulge" in its royal feast The Crown. The series is terribly well scripted and acted, but really, has it got anything on Dirty Den?

Altogether now: “This, my sweet, is a letter from my solicitor . . .”