Was Christmas telly better in the good old days?

Ed Power takes a look through 1980s festive TV schedules to see what we were watching a generation ago - and some of this year's highlights

Last year, Christmas telly was Brown all the way down. The highest rated Christmas Day broadcast on Irish television was Mrs Brown’s Boys: Mammy of the People, which drew 486,400 viewers – a 35 per cent share of the audience. In the UK, meanwhile, the seasonal ratings war was won by Call The Midwife, with an audience of 6.8 million. It was followed, inevitably, Mrs Brown’s Boys in seventh place (with 3.8 million).

This confirmed Brendan O’Carroll as a jolly bearded man who had made Christmas his own. But he didn’t have the day entirely to himself. Other big winners on December 25 included Fair City, which drew 257,000 for its Christmas special and EastEnders, racking up 267,000 Irish viewers on St Stephen’s Day.