This article argues that Christmas TV ratings cannot be used as a definitive measure of the BBC’s success or failure. Reflecting on the contrast between 2024 and 2025 ratings, it warns against over-selling short-term successes and calls for a culture shift through Charter Renewal, refocusing the BBC on public purpose, citizen interests, and innovation in a decentralised media environment.
Christmas television ratings are routinely treated as symbolic verdicts on the health of British broadcasting. Each year, they are framed as proof either of the BBC’s enduring relevance or its supposed decline. In a blog I wrote in response to the BBC’s Christmas 2024 ratings, I cautioned against this tendency. An individual set of figures, particularly those drawn from a single day, cannot credibly be used to determine either the success or failure of a public service broadcaster. One swallow does not make a spring, and one Christmas does not define an institution.
That argument bears repeating in light of the BBC’s Christmas Day 2025 overnight ratings. This year’s figures were markedly lower than those recorded in 2024, which benefited from unusually high-profile, event-led programming. Some commentators have been quick to describe the 2025 results as evidence of failure, while others within the BBC have sought to reframe them positively by emphasising share, cross-platform reach, or the broadcaster’s dominance of the top ten.
Neither response is adequate. The deeper problem lies in the way ratings have been rhetorically mobilised over time, particularly by BBC management. When strong figures are over-sold as proof of institutional success, they create an implicit benchmark. When those benchmarks are not met, as in 2025, the justifications collapse. What was presented as evidence of strategic strength begins to look like contingency, luck, or the temporary alignment of programming with audience nostalgia.
This is not an argument that Christmas 2025 “proves” the BBC is in decline. It does not. But it does expose the fragility of a narrative that relies too heavily on headline numbers to defend the BBC’s position. The risk is not external criticism, which the BBC has always faced, but internal complacency. Over-selling success during peak moments encourages management to believe that existing structures, commissioning practices, and strategic priorities are fit for purpose, when in reality they may be increasingly misaligned with the BBC’s public service role.
The question, then, is not whether the BBC “won” or “lost” Christmas 2025, but what these recurring debates reveal about the organisation’s culture and direction. The BBC continues to frame its performance in market terms, comparing itself implicitly or explicitly with commercial broadcasters and global streaming platforms. This logic is visible in the language of competition, share, and dominance, even when the BBC insists it is not trying to “be Netflix”.
This is where the upcoming Charter Renewal becomes critical. If the BBC’s remit continues to be interpreted through a quasi-market lens, then ratings spikes and troughs will remain the primary currency of legitimacy. That, in turn, will reinforce conservative commissioning, risk aversion, and a tendency to replicate formats that appear to work elsewhere. The result is an institution that increasingly copies the market rather than correcting for its failures.
A meaningful culture shift would start from a different premise. The BBC exists to serve citizens’ interests, not to manage perceptions of institutional success or to compete in a global content arms race. Its purpose is not to maximise audience numbers at all costs, but to provide distinctive value that would not otherwise exist. This includes innovation, experimentation, cultural risk, and the support of forms of media that are not easily justified through overnight ratings.
In a devolved and decentralised media environment, this matters more than ever. Audiences are fragmented, viewing habits are diverse, and cultural participation increasingly happens outside traditional broadcast models. A centralised, top-down approach to public service media is poorly suited to this reality. The BBC should be leading the development of a more distributed public media ecology, working alongside local, regional, and civic media rather than treating them as marginal or supplementary.
This requires more than minor adjustments. It calls for a radical reorientation of how success is understood and measured. Public value cannot be reduced to scale alone. It must account for depth, trust, inclusion, and long-term cultural benefit. A programme watched by fewer people may nonetheless have greater public significance than one that attracts a large but fleeting audience. The BBC’s own research has acknowledged this in the past, but it has struggled to embed that understanding into its strategic culture.
Charter Renewal offers an opportunity to reset these assumptions. Government should be clear that the BBC’s role is not to mirror commercial logics, but to provide an alternative to them. This means protecting space for innovation that does not immediately “rate”, supporting plural and place-based production, and recognising that public service media is part of the UK’s civic infrastructure, not simply its entertainment economy.
Seen in this light, the debate about Christmas ratings becomes a distraction. The real issue is whether the BBC is structurally equipped to fulfil its public purpose in the decades ahead. That will not be determined by whether a Christmas drama reaches five million or twelve million viewers, but by whether the organisation can adapt its culture, governance, and remit to serve citizens in a complex, decentralised media landscape.
If the BBC continues to defend itself primarily through selective readings of ratings data, it will remain vulnerable to the very fluctuations it seeks to explain away. A more honest, citizen-focused approach would acknowledge that public value is not always popular, and that popularity, when it does occur, should be treated as an outcome, not a strategy.
For a fuller discussion of these issues in relation to the 2024 Christmas ratings, see:
Endnotes
1. One Swallow Does Not Make a Spring: Analysing the Christmas TV Ratings Bubble