'A Christmas Story' will run all day on Christmas on TBS.
What started out as a scheduling lark -- Turner's 24-hour "A Christmas Story" marathon -- has now spread across the cable yuletide landscape.
For the 13th year in a row, Turner will dust off the 1983 cult fave, which will air this year from 8 p.m. Christmas Eve until 8 p.m. Christmas Day on TBS.
"A Christmas Story" has turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving for Turner, which started the trend on TNT in 1997 (before eventually moving it to comedy-centric TBS). As in years past, the movie will air back-to-back 12 times over the course of a day.
Turner has gotten a lot of holiday mileage out of "Christmas Story" through the years and has helped turn it into a perennial holiday favorite -- much like "It's a Wonderful Life" became a Christmas staple thanks to the years of repetitive telecasts.
Turner rivals have taken notice -- which means TBS isn't the only cabler decking the halls with a wall-to-wall marathon this year.
Leading the alternatives to "A Christmas Story" is FX, which is planning to run the movie "Night at the Museum" for a full day, also from Christmas Eve evening to Christmas Day evening. FX sister Fox Movie Channel will do the same with "Home Alone."
"When the TV goes on, it's nice when you have a movie that can appeal to everyone in the house," said FX exec VP Chuck Saftler. "And our ad sales team says it's a positive thing for them, too."
FX has fully embraced the concept, having also offered a marathon of "Home Alone" on Thanksgiving.
The marathon airing allows distracted viewers to zone in and out of the TV while celebrating with others, Saftler said. As a result, homes might keep their TV tuned to a channel like FX or TBS all day long -- not a bad opportunity to promo your channel's original programming to a cheery audience. Saftler said FX has aggressively gone after family-centric theatricals -- including its output deal with DreamWorks -- in order to load up for the holidays.
Christmas, in particular, "is an interesting day for viewership," Saftler said. "With families, the way they gather is they flip on the TV, it's sort of on in the background."
Last year, when FX ran 24 hours of "Ice Age 2" on Christmas, it posted strong numbers, particularly in the morning -- scoring more than a million 18-49 viewers for just one screening, at 11 a.m.
"Those are primetime-style numbers," the FX exec said.
Hence the mad marathon dash at the cablers this Christmas. Over at AMC, the cabler is splitting its holiday marathon in two, running 1954's "White Christmas" all Christmas Eve night, and then 1989's "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" all Christmas day.
Then there's Spike TV, which will spend Dec. 25 running "Bad Santa" over and over again.
But "Bad Santa" is at least targeted to the season. Several other nets are running marathons on Christmas day that might not be, well, quite as appropriate.
Take A&E's decision to run episodes of grisly "Criminal Minds" all Christmas Day. Or MTV's mix of "Parental Control" and "Teen Mom" (perhaps for the more dysfunctional families in the audience?).
VH1 will run multiple episodes of "Celebrity Fit Club." That might help deter auds from scarfing another helping of Grandma's rum balls. The NBA also is promoting its five games on the day (via both ESPN and ABC), spanning from noon until after midnight ET.
As for those sitting in front of the TV, muttering at the thought of impending credit card bills, CNBC has tailored a proper marathon: a day-long airing of "Til Debt Do Us Part."
Contact Michael Schneider at
mike.schneider@variety.com