In relation to the

television industry Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

, Christmas tapes are unendorsed

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...

s compiled by technical staff for their personal amusement and peers' enjoyment. The name originates from the 1950s, when the material was filmed at the staff's Christmas parties where impromptu sketches were carried out. As time progressed, other types of material (such as

outtake An outtake is a portion of a work (usually a film or music recording) that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DV ...

s and deliberate misbehaviour) were included on the videos. As videotape gradually overtook film as the dominant medium for television recording, the proliferation of Christmas tapes grew. Early Christmas tapes were plundered for outtake shows like

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

's ''

It'll be Alright on the Night ''It'll be Alright on the Night'' is a British television bloopers programme screened on ITV and produced by ITV Studios. It was one of the first series created with the specific purpose of showing behind the scenes bloopers from film and TV. ...

'', presented by

Denis Norden Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the ...

, which started life as an occasional treat in the schedules and eventually grew to become a genre in their own right. Copies of the tapes were shared over internal playout systems or networked playback, and some then leaked outside, appearing on the private collector's circuit, a phenomenon which led to an incident in 1978 when a mocked-up sequence featuring

Princess Anne Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of K ...

in that year's BBC Christmas tape, "White Powder Christmas", came to the attention of the ''

Sunday People The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881. At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ' ...

'' newspaper. Several references to the previous year's Christmas tape were made in the 1979 BBC Christmas tape, "Good King Memorex". Some of the most notable examples of the Christmas tape genre were made in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before the

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...

era, when VT engineers started recording errors and out-takes to disk – for some viewers who saw these, it was surprising to hear television stars making mistakes and swearing onscreen. Since then greater control of production facilities along with the deregulation of

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

has all but killed off the Christmas tape phenomenon. Some examples of the genre include the 1978 Christmas tape from staff at

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until th ...

which included an especially contrived

innuendo An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion ...

-laden edition of the children's show ''

Rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

'' and a 1979 Christmas tape from employees of

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

which included a send-up of the popular ITV quiz ''

3-2-1 ''3–2–1'' was a British game show that was made by Yorkshire Television for ITV. It ran for ten years, from 29 July 1978 to 24 December 1988, with Ted Rogers as the host. It was based on a Spanish gameshow called '' Un, dos, tres... resp ...

'', an adaptation of a popular television commercial of the time from the Italian car manufacturer

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

and comments about YTV management following the strike which had put the network off the air a few months previously. The BBC VT inhouse team made Christmas tapes yearly – the ones produced between 1977 and 1997 were commonly watched at Christmas parties. Due to distribution via GPO tower and UK playout, many were recorded off air and are now available. Many pioneering VT effects and now-common standards were trialled in these experimental outputs. Christmas tapes were also produced by some television stations in

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and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Description of Christmas tapes at bvws.org.uk
Television in the United Kingdom Error Film editing Home video supplements Television terminology