Annual Christmas Crackers Joke Competition Launches

TV channel Gold challenges individuals from across the nation to come up with witty modern Christmas cracker jokes for 2017 competition

Cracker joke contest running for fifth year

Top prize is £1,500 holiday vouchers plus a bespoke set of Christmas crackers featuring their winning joke

Nine runners up will also receive a festive hamper and set of the bespoke Gold crackers

Tuesday 10 October 2017 Following the popularity of the past four years, UKTV channel Gold has announced its annual national joke competition to discover the best new Christmas cracker gags - covering all the ups and downs of 2017, as written by the British public.

Last years winning one-liner was political pun How will Christmas dinner be different after Brexit? No Brussels., with 2015s top spot being taken by Why does Ed Milliband like advent calendars? He gets to open the door to number 10.

For a fifth year, TV channel Gold is launching a competition encouraging the nation to get creative with a Christmas twist on the events of the past year, from pop culture and politics to sports and celebrities, with the aim of getting the country in the festive spirit for the holiday season!

Britons will pull an astounding 300 million crackers on Christmas Day and Golds mission is to keep the laughs fresh with new topical, seasonal gags.

The competition is open until 11.59pm on Sunday 29th October 2017, and can be entered by tweeting new, original and funny Christmas jokes with the hashtag #GoldCrackers.

The winner will receive £1,500 holiday vouchers, as well as having their joke included in their own personalised set of crackers ready to pull on the big day. The nine runners-up will each receive a festive Christmas hamper, and a box of bespoke Gold Christmas crackers, which include the top six winning jokes.

HOW TO ENTER Open to all UK residents aged 18 and over, to enter please:

Tweet a Christmas-themed joke via your personal Twitter account including the hashtag #GoldCrackers

Gold is looking for modern festive jokes that put a comedy twist on the news agenda or pop culture phenomenon across the past year

Must be original content and suitable for a family audience (e.g. no swear words)

The joke entry must not be more than 140 characters, including the hashtag #GoldCrackers

Multiple entries are allowed

All entrants must follow @GoldTVChannel (so we can notify the winners) - but the @GoldTVChannel twitter handle does not need to be included in the joke entry

For further information on the terms and conditions, please click here.

The best jokes will be shortlisted by a comedy panel led by Bruce Dessau, comedy critic for the Evening Standard and editor of comedy website beyondthejoke.co.uk, and then put to an anonymous public vote - with the winning jokes being announced in December.

Bruce Dessau said:

2017 will go down as one of the most eventful periods in modern history - and while there are serious events going on, we can usually find something to smile about! Whether it is tittering at the new Great British Bake Off line-up or giggling at Theresa Mays gaffes, there is plenty out there to inspire this nation of jokers. Im looking forward to seeing what comic gems Golds Christmas Crackers competition will come up with this year - just make sure to fit it into a tweet, make sure it is clean and of course, make us laugh!

Steve North, General Manager of Gold, said:

2017 has certainly been a rollercoaster of a year, from politics to pop culture phenomena - were looking forward to seeing what topics the nation will choose as inspiration for their jokes to give us all a giggle this Christmas!

With the success of Golds Christmas Cracker competition across the last four years, the channel is welcoming back the chance to enjoy the festive cheer. From the snap election and Donald Trump and Kim Jong Uns missle-off to celebrity hook-ups and break-ups, there is plenty of opportunity to showcase witty riffs on the years news agenda - and as entries are made via Twitter, all gags must be within 140 characters, to keep jokes short and snappy like the very best crackers!

For more information please contact:

Alex Butler / AB@taylorherring.com / Taylor Herring PR / 0208 206 5151

Notes to Editors About Gold

Sky 110, Virgin 126, BT and TalkTalk 408 On demand on Sky, Virgin and Now TV Dedicated to celebrating the best of British comedy, Gold is the nations favourite comedy channel.

Much-loved comedy series such as Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley and Outnumbered sit alongside successful commissions including Comic Strip Presents...Red Top and Marleys Ghosts, starring Sarah Alexander and John Hannah, and the live broadcast of the final ever performance of the Monty Python Live (mostly): One Down Five to Go stage show which became the highest rating programme in Golds history in 2014.

The perfect tonic to make you laugh whatever the time of day, Gold shows universally funny content that everyone can enjoy.

Gold.uktv.co.uk / @goldtvchannel

About UKTV

UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 40m viewers every month.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.

The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.

Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.

corporate.uktv.co.

LINK:	https://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/annual-christmas-crackers-jo...
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