Back in the mid-1990s....I worked at Ramstein with another guy....who was also married to a German. Christmas came up one year. I had fairly big laugh over TV options on the 24th (Xmas eve) and the 25th (Christmas Day). When I returned to work....my associate brought up the topic and we spent a fair amount of time discussing this.
From what I can remember on the 24th....my choices at 8:15 PM on German TV consisted of: (1) some German-produced Santa movie with Santa being chased around by bad guys with assault rifles, (2) Rambo, (3) a Tatort (a German krimi series), (4) some 1950s Hercules movie, (5) some Czech-production from the 1960s of Cinderella, and (6) some British romance piece.
What Germans usually say is that none of the networks....public or private....care to put much effort into the schedule for the 24th or 25th because no one is watching TV very much.
For this year on the 24th? I have my new TV guide and checked it out: (1) Kevin (it runs at least six to eight times a year in Germany), (2) Lord of the Rings, (3) some German-produced comedy Christmas movie from 2014, (4) A Night in the Museum, (5) a two-hour Hansel and Greta opera (from a story that usually only take six minutes to tell), (6) a three-hour Daniela Katzenburger (the German promi blonde gal) special, (7) a 1950s British-made Miss Marple murder mystery, (8) the Wonder of Manhatten (US-made 1990s Christmas movie), (9) the Czech 1960s production of Cinderella, (9) two different Christmas tunes shows, and (10) Con Air (a US made shoot-them-up movie).
No one ever does statistics, but I would take a humble guess that fewer than twelve million Germans (out of 82-million) are watching any TV for the 24th. Maybe in some way, it's a positive thing and that people are doing in-house or neighborhood type Christmas activities, instead of sitting at home and watching Miss Marple solve the strange case of the dead vicar, who was actually killed by six different people.
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