Christmas: When Traditional Media Is The Tradition

Traditional media shaped Christmas. And Christmas is when it comes back to the fore. At least where I come from in Britain. TV, radio and print all have a place in what makes this time of year feel the way it does.

Sometime in November, the ads begin. Not met with a groan, like Christmas trees appearing too early on Oxford Street, but with a quiet national cheer. These are ads as anticipation. John Lewis. Sainsbury's. Amazon. The country waits to see what they have made this year. We judge them, rank them, share them, dissect them. We talk about them for days.

These are not impressions. They are events. Scheduled, anticipated, communal. Advertising as tradition. Media teams will measure VTRs and shares, of course, but the quiet sentimental tears shed by viewers are what matter.

In the weeks before Christmas, the TV chefs return. Nigella. Jamie. Gordon. They show us, once again, how to make Brussels sprouts palatable and what to do with leftover cranberry sauce. We have seen it before. We watch it again anyway. It is cosy, and that is the point.

The Radio Times Christmas double issue lands on the doormat. By Boxing Day it is dog-eared, circles and annotations marking out the week’s viewing. A family negotiation conducted in pen and highlighter. This is what we are watching, and when, and who gets the main TV. If anyone needs proof that linear still matters, the evidence is right there in biro.

On Christmas Eve, radio keeps the country sane. Motorways clogged, families scattered but converging. The car radio on, children asleep in the back, familiar voices and familiar songs filling the dark. The M1 at dusk, heading north.

The Snowman airs on Channel 4, as it has for more than forty years. Families do not search for it on demand. They wait for it. A child watches and knows that their parents watched it too, at the same time of year, on the same channel.

Later, Radio 4 broadcasts Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge. Not a podcast. Not on demand. A live service from a cold candlelit chapel by the Cam, filling kitchens with angelic song as dinner is prepared. The liveness matters. It is happening now in Cambridge and now in your mum’s kitchen. You are home. Christmas has begun.

The DVD box gets pulled from the loft. Love Actually. Home Alone. The Muppet Christmas Carol. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Everyone knows the beats. Everyone quotes the lines. A family held together by shared repetition.

On Christmas morning, newspapers are on the newsstands. Most of the country has the day off, but print journalists are writing, presses are running and delivery drivers are still out there in the cold.

And at 3pm, the King speaks.

Not to you on a Reel. To everyone, on BBC One. At the same moment. Your great aunt in her armchair. Your cousins in Wales. Strangers you will never meet. A nation, briefly, in sync.

Then dinner is served.