Radio Times' behind-the-scenes secrets and history of iconic Christmas issues - from Parliamentary approval to Guinness World Records

If there's one thing that's certain in December it's this: your family will be buying the Radio Times.

From the bumper two weeks of TV listings, to the iconic covers, to circling or highlighting what to watch over the break, in RT's 100-plus years, it's become synonymous with the festive season.

It all started out as quite a "boring" accompaniment to the dawn of radio, brand editor Shem Law tells us of the first ever Radio Times magazines. But from humble beginnings to an office run by fax machines, a lasting relationship with Aardman's Wallace & Gromit and a Guinness World Record along the way, there's so much more to the story.

Let us take you on a trip down memory lane as we walk you through some of the unexpected stories, near-disasters and trade secrets behind the making of the iconic Radio Times Christmas issue over the decades.

Early Radio Times magazines were actually pretty boring

What you'll find in the first ever Radio Times Christmas issue, Law admits, is not very exciting now. "There's lots of features about, 'Are you suffering from oscillation?'" he says, "which was a problem that you would get if you hadn't set your radio up properly. It would sort of howl every so often.

"Radio was in its absolute infancy. BBC had only really started a year before, and a lot of what was in the magazine was technical stuff about how you build a radio, dials and diodes. So, when you look at an ordinary copy of Radio Times, they're very boring."

But Christmas changed things. "The editor obviously decided that, for tripling the price, we'd get this lovely colour illustration, which was brilliant. And a lot of magazines followed suit and then started producing a Christmas edition in colour. It was a trend-setter even then."

The first Radio Times Christmas issue is now a genuine antique

The original Radio Times Christmas issue from 1923 is old enough to qualify as a genuine antique now – "102 years old, can you believe it?"

It's old enough to require being treated like a museum artefact. Delicately thumbing through a copy of said original festive issue, Law notes: "It's quite fragile. So I'm being very careful."

Radio Times taught Britain to ignore its relatives and gather round a device in the corner

On the very first Christmas Radio Times cover, a family gathers around a radio in their living room. It was published, Law explains, just a small number of weeks after the magazine itself launched in September 1923.

"Look how quickly everybody's decided what you need to be doing at Christmas is sitting around an electronic device with your entire family – and ignoring the piano in the corner and the fact that all your relatives have come round," he says. "It's quite astonishing. And I think it's a real indication that Radio Times became quite a cultural phenomena – a trend-setter in this country."

Did the 1969 Christmas double issue change how Britain does Christmas forever?

We might have had something to do with Christmas becoming a two-week national shutdown.

Holding up the first Christmas double issue – covering a full two weeks of TV and radio over the festive period – Law reveals: "This is an absolute landmark in the history of Radio Times: 20 December to 2 January, so New Year and Christmas. Up until then, there'd been two issues

"In the early '60s you still had things going on: public transport ran, there were football matches – all on Christmas Day. That all moves to Boxing Day now. But then, you know, Christmas Day wasn't as such a special day.

"This issue heralded a time when the UK sort of started to shut down for two weeks," he laughs. 'And hence the modern Christmas where everything just sort of stops. It's Radio Times' fault!"

So Radio Times imposed two weeks' rest on the nation?

"Absolutely! And I think people embraced it hugely."

The first multi-channel Christmas listings needed Parliamentary approval

By 1991, things looked a lot glossier for the festive magazine after the bigwigs in Westminster agreed to liberalise the TV industry, introducing competition and ultimately allowing TV listings mags to list all channels. Suddenly, it was Radio Times vs TV Times.

"This was the first time that you had BBC programmes alongside ITV, Channel 4, satellite programmes. It all seems quite normal now with all the streamers and what have you but it was such a big deal," says Law.

"It was a huge moment. It had to be cleared by Parliament, they debated it.

"Rupert Murdoch started a magazine that was going to be a listings magazine for a year-and-a-half before deregulation actually came in, thinking that it was going to happen – and they kept leaving it and leaving it.

"In the end, he closed it because no one was buying it, 'cause it had no listings in it! It just said, 'You know, there's some great television on this week,' but not actually telling you when it was."

While everyone at the time thought deregulation might be the death of listings magazines, Radio Times is still going strong today.

"This is before my time at Radio Times," Law reflects. "I can't imagine what it must have been like, having to produce listings when the whole time had just been spent doing BBC shows.

"Even today, before we create the Christmas issue, there's a lot of talk with all the schedulers from all the different broadcasters to get all that information in, in time for us to be able to print it for Christmas."

Fax machines once powered the entire Christmas issue

Long before TV schedules were officially confirmed via email, as they are today, we had to contend with the information vanishing – literally.

"In '90, '91, I think they were probably faxed," says Law. "And fax machines – I cannot begin to tell you – were the most important machine in the office back in the '80s and '90s.

"They were rubbish. And then they used to fade. If you kept [a fax] for any length of time, it was like, 'Where's that fax? I've got – oh no, there's nothing on here,'" he laughs.

The Christmas Radio Times once sold over 11 million copies

In 1988, the Radio Times became a world record holder when the Christmas issue sold an incredible 11 million copies – something Law observes would have meant roughly one in every five people in Britain at the time bought a copy.

"Absolute history," Law calls the record-breaking issue.

"It was in a time in the late '80s when TV, music, you name it – everything was at its height. Magazines, physical things that you could go out and buy, were absolutely at their height."

The cover – an illustration by Linda Gray of a pantomime scene, caused the Radio Times office to receive complaints from readers, however.

"People thought that this was advertising a programme – and it wasn't. It was just a beautiful illustration because inside we had created a sort of fictitious pantomime with what we called the Radio Times Players. And we got various celebrities that were all over television to be various pantomime stars."

But what fills today's editor Law with "dread" is the thought of the "logistics nightmare" of even having to print 11 million copies.

"I mean, it takes a week to print Radio Times now," he says. "I can't imagine how long it took to print 11 million copies, even though they were being printed at about five different printing sites.

"Then you've got to get those around the UK to the various shops. There were a lot more newsagents in those days, you know. It would have been a logistics nightmare."

It takes a village

Art director and brand editor alike have to relinquish some control at Christmas.

"There are so many people involved in approving it, agreeing whether it's the right direction," Law explains. "Everybody has an opinion, as you can imagine."

Christmas is a serious period at Radio Times. "This goes right up to the board level here – and you have to really sell it."

Law says, as an editor, he has to truly believe in the creative choices for the all-important Christmas issue because he'll be grilled on them across the company.

"You really have to believe in what you've commissioned because you've got to then take that on into rooms and talk people into understanding why you've done this, why you think this is going to sell, why you think it's important.

"And that's really the only time! We tend to get left alone for the rest of the year because I'd like to think they know that we know what we're doing.

"But, for me, there are a few sleepless nights [leading up to Christmas]."

This year's Aardman Christmas cover was agreed almost a year in advance

This year's festive celebration puts the British screen icons from Aardman front and centre once again, in a deal that was struck many months ago at the exclusive Radio Times Covers Party.

"We go back to Aardman regularly because we have such a good relationship with them, with the fact that Nick Park absolutely loves the Radio Times," Law says. "We absolutely love Wallace & Gromit. And in the world of Aardman, everybody reads the Radio Times in front of their big television."

Giving an insight into how the sausage gets made, he reveals discussions to have Gromit and Shaun the Sheep star on this year's Christmas cover began back in January 2025.

"This is the earliest we ever came up with a Christmas cover," he says. "I can date it to 27 January this year 'cause it was at the Radio Times' glittering Covers Party in London's West End. I was talking to Aardman and they were saying, 'Well, next year we've got a Shaun the Sheep Christmas special.'"

It's a match made in heaven – Radio Times and Aardman, with Wallace and Gromit creator Park even drawing preliminary sketches for this year's Christmas magazine cover.

"They are absolutely brilliant when it comes to working with us," Law says. "They understand us, they get Radio Times. I love working with Nick Park. He's so enthusiastic. He gets involved – he drew all the roughs for this cover.

"That's amazing! He's a man that doesn't have a lot of time and he runs a very big company and makes lots of films. So we're always eternally grateful for him to do that for us."

The annual Radio Times Christmas issue is on sale now.

Did you know you can now order a previous edition of Radio Times magazine with our new back issues service?

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