BBC 1 may still be the place to turn for a special occasion - as a channel for reflection, but ITV is still regarded by many as the place for a celebration - the party channel. And it's no coincidence that, earlier this month, ITV persuaded a drinks firm, Diageo, to fork out pounds 1m to purchase all airtime in the last commercial break of 31 December and the first of 1 January.With the new millennium just a few days away, attention is also turning to the titanic clash for ratings anticipated on Friday night. For while competition for viewers rises sharply the week after each Christmas, larger than usual numbers are expected to be watching TV this year as more people choose to stay at home due to inflated millennium- night prices and anticipated traffic congestion. As a result, Stanley believes commercial broadcasters still have everything to play for."Viewing figures quickly shift in commercial broadcasters' favour between Christmas and New Year," he says.

Research conducted for the company shows that TV audiences have planned more carefully the programmes they watch over Christmas and New Year. The study found 66 per cent of viewers at this time of year to be Sofa Strategists - carefully pre-selecting each day's viewing compared with just 14 per cent defined as Serious Surfers - people prone to channel-hopping - and 8 per cent known as Supines - those willing to watch anything friends or family want to see. With up to 19 per cent more people watching TV over the Christmas and New Year holiday period, Price says, there's just no excuse for commercial channels to throw in the towel - not least because the gameplan shifts once more with the arrival of Boxing Day.Graeme Stanley, director of broadcasting for ONdigital, agrees. Besides, grumbles one top-10 advertiser: "People watch passively with little involvement at this time of year - which has massive impact on the out-take for advertising.

While ratings may look high, there's no guarantee anyone's watching. For although BARB viewing data records when a TV is on, it does not detect if a viewer is asleep, drunk or has left the room."ITV switched tactics this year, however, with a more aggressive approach that included wheeling out seasonal editions of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? not once, but three times on Christmas Day. The amount of flak the BBC got last year for its Christmas edition of Men Behaving Badly, which some people found too rude, indicates the more wholesome tone people expect later in the evening when watching TV at Christmas and New Year," says Steven Price.Between Yule and New Year, there is relatively low demand from advertisers for commercial airtime, due to a belief that people are less in the mood to spend following their festive spending spree. And scheduling tactics change to cater for this different viewing mindset."The usual 9pm watershed, for example, is diluted with mixed age groups watching longer and kids staying up later than is usually the case. But why waste a brilliant and serious documentary or original contemporary drama if Christmas viewers want undemanding fare? So that's what we do."Those of us who watch The Queen's Speech, meanwhile, would rather do so without the ads. "We set out to give them what they want and, with few exceptions, this means bland fare I often wonder if we could be bolder. A decade earlier it was Raiders of the Lost Ark and Porridge, while the Seventies were ruled by The Likely Lads, Dad's Army and Mastermind."The Christmas audience seems to have an endless capacity to watch ancient movies most of them have already seen before," a senior executive at one broadcaster laments.