AFTER many years of second rate Christmas television I didn't think the TV companies could stoop so low. I was wrong!

The fare on offer this Christmas was awful.

It's a poor do when you have to dig into the past to the seventies and eighties when Christmas television, particularly on the BBC, was well worth waiting to watch.

The likes of Mike Yarwood, Morecambe and Wise and the Two Ronnies are now just a distant memory, and nowadays it is virtually impossible for anyone to come up to the standard of those shows.

Even the films this year have all been on in previous years with The Great Escape once again given an airing.

In a nutshell, TV these days is terrible.

All programmes are time-fillers in between news programmes.

There aren't any so-called stars like those days.

Obviously times have changed and unfortunately for the TV viewer, not for the better.

M HIBBERT, Ivan Street, Burnley.