2) The start date of December 24th is also the latest it's been this century.
Normally the double issue Radio Times covers Christmas Eve/Christmas Day and New Year's Eve/New Year's Day. That's straight-forward if Christmas Day is on a weekday because everything fits happily into the Saturday-Friday format. It's not straight-forward if Christmas Day is on a Saturday because New Year's Eve is a Friday and you can't then shoehorn Christmas Eve and New Year's Day into a Radio Times fortnight. On such occasions the magazine always goes early (18-31 Dec) rather than late (25 Dec - 7 Jan).
This year Christmas Day is on a Sunday, so it makes sense to start on Saturday 24th December and end on Friday 6th January because that contains all the important dates. But in previous years with a Sunday Christmas (1983, 1988, 1994, 2005, 2011, 2016) they've gone early and produced a double Christmas edition (17 -30 Dec) followed by a separate New Year edition (31 Dec - 6 Jan), which means 2022 is really quite unusual.
It's actually the first time since 1982 that the double issue has started on Christmas Eve, and that was a proper wildcard because December 24th was a Friday so the double issue contained 15 days. This year's festive edition is thus the first proper Christmas Eve starter since 1977, forty-five years ago.
3) Where are the big Christmas films?
Miracle on 34th Street: 11am, Film4, December 24th It's A Wonderful Life: 1.25pm, C4, December 24th Home Alone: 5.25pm, C4, December 24th Elf: 6pm, Sky Showcase, December 24th White Christmas: 11.35am, BBC2, December 25th Love Actually: 10.45pm, ITV1, December 25th Mary Poppins: 2.25pm, BBC1, December 26th Die Hard: 9pm, ITV4, December 27th Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: 3.20pm, ITV1, December 31st The Sound of Music: any time, Disney+
4) 7% of the double issue is about streaming.
Radio Times has long not been about just radio, but these days it's also not just about radio and television. This year a 16-page section up front suggests lots of things you might want to watch on streaming services instead, plus there are also 4 pages of adverts for streamables. It's telling that the most expensive advert of all, on the back cover, is for the Netflix film Glass Onion (indeed Netflix have taken the back cover every Christmas since 2017, so that's where the money is).
The most popular category of advertising this year is live events with 11 pages. People who can stump up £5.25 for a listings magazine might also stump up considerably more to go to a theatre show or concert. Other advertisers include Sky television (3 pages), upcoming films at the cinema (2 pages), furniture sales (2 pages) and urging you to get a smart meter (2 pages).
5) It's the longest double issue ever.
This year's festive edition is 302 pages long. Normally in recent years it's been just under 300 but this year's has just breached that.
The data: 2022 302 pages, 2021 292 pages, 2020 292 pages, 2019 292 pages, 2018 292 pages, 2017 292 pages, 2016 292 pages, 2015 sorry I lost interest at this point
