More streamers on the scene and a growing demand from celebration-deprived viewers are sparking producers to create a new brand of holiday content that’s less event-specific and more about exploring diverse cultures. 

The growth of OTT platforms means audiences have plenty of options beyond traditional TV channels for holiday content viewing. Streamers accounted for a 33% share of total TV viewing in the US during Christmas week last year—an all-time weekly high, according to Nielsen’s data summary The Gauge. And these new outlets provide more opportunities for producers to sell their holiday programming to buyers aiming to keep consumers in a festive spirit year-round. 

During the pandemic, many families got used to viewing holiday-oriented content as a stand-in for big family gatherings, says David Di Lorenzo, SVP of kids and family at AVOD publisher Future Today. The California-based company curates holiday-themed playlists by age on its flagship HappyKids AVOD platform (which targets preschoolers to tweens) and also rebrands its apps with holiday-themed icons during the winter months. These efforts target families who want to be “engulfed in the holiday experience,” says Di Lorenzo, “and we see an uplift of people coming into the app during this time.”

In the UK, the BBC iPlayer VOD platform set a “festive record” in the period from December 17, 2021 to January 3, 2022, notching a 6% increase in viewership compared to the same timeframe the previous year. 

These days, streamers are also making holiday content accessible year-round, rather than just during the Christmas season. This has opened up new opportunities for less on-the-nose programming that exudes a festive feeling and reflects holiday tropes without directly referencing Christmas or any other specific calendar date, say Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding, founders of London-based Lupus Films.

In 2019, Lupus produced the half-hour special The Tiger Who Came to Tea (pictured) for UK broadcaster Channel 4. Featuring an anthropomorphic tiger who invites himself to a tea party given by a young girl and her mother, the special aired on Christmas Eve but doesn’t actually feature any nods to Christmas. Instead, it focuses on adjacent concepts—a family spending time together and enjoying food and drink—with nostalgic animation adding to the feel-good vibes.

“With a couple of our specials, including Tiger, we’ve been able to make something that feels like a real holiday treat at Christmas, but in fact doesn’t have Christmas in it,” Deakin says. Removing specific holiday references lets the content work on air at other times throughout the year, adds Fielding. “Channel 4 [broadcasts some of these specials] on Easter as well.” 

London’s Magic Light Pictures has also taken a more perennial approach with specials like last year’s The Snail and the Whale and The Smeds and the Smoos, which will debut on BBC One this Christmas. The Smeds tells the story of two young children who develop a powerful bond and run off together despite family rivalries. Its themes of love overcoming hate and generations of families coming together help create a festive feel. 

“It’s not purely about the holiday season for us,” says Magic Light’s co-founder Martin Pope. The specials generate millions of monthly views on BBC iPlayer, Pope adds, noting that this type of content can expect a much longer shelf life today. 

“It’s like the old phrase ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas,'” says Pope. “That is very much how we view specials. We are delivering something for holidays, and we hope that they’re enjoyed at those times, but they can also be enjoyed all the time.”

Meanwhile, Sesame Workshop is prepping Sesame Street’s The Nutcracker, an animated holiday special starring Elmo and his puppy, Tango. It’s set to debut later this year and features a reimagining of the original Tchaikovsky score, which should give it legs throughout the year as kids revisit it to sing along, says Kay Wilson Stallings, Sesame Workshop’s EVP of creative and production.

Sesame is also working towards an expansive definition of “holiday” that is not just about Christmas, but can also apply to other days and observances that resonate across cultures. Stallings adds that the nonprofit company is considering specials about the Hindu festival of Diwali, Hispanic Heritage Month, Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Native American Heritage Month. “We’ve been producing content that really taps into celebrating and appreciating your own racial, cultural and ethnic identity and that of others.”