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    What Christmas Episodes Reveal About the Health of U.S. Television [OC]
    Data

    What Christmas Episodes Reveal About the Health of U.S. Television [OC]


    A data-driven look at how Christmas-themed TV episodes rise and fall with industry confidence.

    Key takeaways:

    • Christmas-themed TV episodes rise and fall in clear production cycles, with major declines in 1998–2000, 2006–2008, and again starting in 2023, suggesting a strong link to broader industry instability rather than seasonal preference.
    • The lowest levels of Christmas episode production in modern television occur in 2008 and 2025, placing today’s output on par with periods of significant disruption such as the 2008 Writers’ Strike.
    • The most productive era for Christmas episodes was 2012–2023, driven largely by long-running sitcoms with stable season orders, ensemble casts, and the scheduling certainty needed to justify holiday-focused episodes.
    • The recent decline does not indicate an agenda-driven shift away from Christmas, but reflects structural changes in television shorter seasons, higher show churn, and reduced confidence that shows will still be airing during the holiday window.
    • https://rewindos.com/index.php/2025/12/16/what-christmas-episodes-reveal-about-the-health-of-u-s-television/

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Christmas_television_episodes

    Notes: Filtered out standalone animated specials EG Rudolph, Frosty etc…

    Tool: Python, ongoing development for my RewindOS project.

    Posted by moderatenerd

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    3 Comments

    1. Few-Interview-1996 on

      Or maybe people just get too tired of Christmas episodes and stop watching, a lesson that has to be relearnt every few years by new executives who have stepped in to fill for those who got fired?

    2. ConsistentAmount4 on

      this really should be pro-rated in some manner, from 1946 until the rise of cable programming there were only 3 – 4 networks

    3. CasuallyExisting on

      Thank you for this interesting and festive data!

      Reading your article, I my takeaway from this data is a little different from yours. First, I do completely agree that shorter seasons are a huge factor (maybe the biggest factor) in decreasing Christmas episodes. You get far fewer one-off filler episodes when seasons are short.

      But I think you’re overlooking the impact of streaming era viewing patterns. Back when The Office or Sabrina The Teenage Witch aired, an episode came out every week. Their Christmas episodes aired in December, when people were feeling Christmas-y.

      Many shows now release full seasons at once. If you release an entire season of a show in April or August, there *is* no December timeslot for a Christmas episode.

      This also ties back into the shorter season factor. For decades, new seasons of shows would most often start to air in September. If you had 24 episodes, you’d have episodes still releasing in December. Now that many shows only have 8 or 10 episodes, and the start dates of seasons are more varied, it’s much less likely that air dates happen to overlap with the holiday season.