Daily Mail: 'Tis the season? New Christmas channel launches on Brits' TVs... and will start showing festive classics 111 days early!

Story from Daily Mail:

Christmas has quite literally come early for fans of the festive season as a Yuletide-only channel is set to hit our screens in a matter of mere days.

Any Crimbo lovers among us will receive the best gift of all when GREAT! Christmas launches on September 4, airing festive films around the clock until the big day.

Scrooges up and down the country have just a week of peace and quiet left before the cycle of festive flicks begins bright and early next Thursday, at 8am.

It seems autumn 'tis no longer the spooky season, with the channel set to launch more than eight weeks before trick-or-treaters pound the pavements for Halloween.

A whopping 172 films will take viewers right up to Christmas Day and beyond - putting your average Advent calendar, with its mere 25 doors, to shame.

The channel of cheer, part of the Great! TV network, will be available on Freeview 52 and online.

It is set to temporarily replace Great! Romance, until January 6, just after Twelfth Night, when the celebrations - and the leftover turkey - will be well and truly finished.

The handover from the home of love stories means the whole Christmas schedule will too have a romantic theme, with some inevitable meetings under the mistletoe.

This concoction of reindeers and romcoms might have some viewers running for the hills.

But even the most dedicated of Grinches will likely find something to please among its programme, with many celebrities set to make a star turn.

Liz Hurley, of Austin Powers fame, is set to feature, with a rerun of 2022 film Christmas In The Caribbean.

She stars as Rachel, who, jilted at the altar, turns her would-be honeymoon into the tropical trip of a lifetime.

Taking her best friends with her - one of whom is played by Men Behaving Badly's Caroline Quentin - the bride thinks she is purely in for a girls' holiday.

But when she falls in love with Alessandro, played by Italian model Edoardo Costa, fate has other - still rather tumultuous - plans.

Also on the festive programme is Christmas At Graceland: Home For The Holidays, starring the one and only Priscilla Presley, wife of the iconic Elvis.

In a whirlwind premise, it sees a high-flying globetrotter have a chance meeting with a single dad of three at the rocker's Memphis home-turned-museum - at Christmas.

Fans of the musical and film Wicked will be delighted to see A Christmas Love Story, a 2019 movie starring Kristin Chenoweth, known for originating the role of Glinda.

But in this festive film, the American actress plays Kate, a youth choir director preparing for a Christmas concert who discovers a youngster with a beautiful voice.

She has to convince his stony widowed father Greg to let him sing - but soon, love blossoms as readily as a poinsettia.

GREAT! Christmas will also air its original movie Christmas At Plumhill Manor, produced by channel owners Narrative Entertainment last year.

The film follows a New York City architect who inherits an English country estate - of course, in December.

This veritable selection box of Christmas watches will also include Miracle In The Highlands, Christmas Under The Stars and Christmas Wedding Planner.

Viewers can also expect titles like Christmas At Holly Lodge, Maggie's Christmas Miracle, A Star-Crossed Christmas - and many, many more.

Yuletide haters may be dismayed to know this festive extravaganza will in fact be giving the people what they want.

GREAT! Christmas is the nation's number one seasonal channel, bringing in one in three UK adults with its sleighful of delights.

Steve Hornsey, Narrative Entertainment's vice president of movies and entertainment, said: 'Forget the naysayers, everybody loves Christmas – and the earlier it starts, the better.

'Our research suggests millions of Brits can't wait to get into the festive spirit early, and GREAT! Christmas is the perfect place for them.

'Last year GREAT! Christmas was once again Britain's favourite seasonal channel.

'Now it's back for everyone who wants to escape into that warm, feel-good world of Christmas romance and family joy.'

But the channel's arrival four months ahead of schedule may prove for some another example of unseasonable pre-Christmas haste.