AS IF we ever needed any more confirmation of how fractured society has become, 2006 will be the first year since 1964 that we won't be able to tune in to Top Of The Pops to find out the identity of the Christmas No 1. It was inevitable, in a way, but even if the programme had lost its relevance in recent years it was, a bit like midnight mass or Christmas cake, oddly comforting to just know it was there.

What TOTPmanaged to do in its own quiet way was draw a line under the No 1 spot. What it said, went.

The problem has always been when to calculate the Christmas No 1. Is it the song that is top in the week preceding Christmas week, the week after or the incumbent on the 25th itself?

Such inexactitude has caused a great many pub debates over what actually was the best-selling single during Christmas and obviously preceded the bookies' now heavy involvement.

For example, Vanilla Ice's 'Ice Ice Baby' was No 1 on Christmas Day in 1990 but had to relinquish such claims when 'Saviour's Day' by Cliff Richard sold more for the week ending 29 December. The Devil Woman was really in the detail.

Ah, as long as there's an interest in the Christmas No 1 there'll be Sir Cliff. He makes our Christmases so much Richard. This year, popular music's biggest selling artist (he has sold more singles than anyone else over a career that has spanned six decades) hopes to emulate his previous Christmas No 1s . . . 'I Love You' (with the Shadows) in 1960, 'Mistletoe & Wine' in 1988 and 'Saviour's Day' . . . with a track called '21st Century Christmas'.

It would be unwise to rule him out as he's been close to capturing top spot so many times before, including 'Santa's List' a couple of years ago and the 'Millennium Prayer' in 1999. The latter was kept off top spot by our own Westlife with 'I Have A Dream'.

Prior to the 1950s, No 1s were compiled on sheet-music sales (how quaint) and it wasn't until mid-decade (and TOTP) that the Christmas No 1 became something to covet. Harry Belafonte took the accolade in 1957 with 'Mary's Boy Child', a song rearranged by wacky Eurodisco dancers Boney M to make No 1 in 1978. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' also made it twice (1975 and 1991) while Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas' has succeeded three times in various incarnations.

The 1960s were owned by the Beatles and they remain the only band to have had back-to-back Christmas No 1s with 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', 'I Feel Fine' and 'Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out' in 1963, '64 and '65 respectively.

What became apparent then that still holds now is there is no guarantee the song will have anything to do with Christmas, or that it will even contain the word in the title, but the 1970s and 1980s saw a proliferation of seasonal tunes including 'When A Child Is Born' by Johnny Mathis in 1976.

There have been plenty of moral No 1s over the years. Like Elvis's 'It's Now Or Never', which was kept at bay by our Cliff in 1960, or 'Fairytale of New York' by Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues, pipped by the Pet Shop Boys' disastrous Elvis rehash 'Always On My Mind' in 1987.

'Fairytale. . .' flirted with the top again in 1991, and even made it to No 3 last year, and the song is now among a number of elite Christmas tunes that chart almost every year, including this year, on the back of the nostalgia market. Ditto Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody' which in 1973 became the first Christmas No 1 to enter the charts in the top spot. Last week it crept into the top 50, probably due to the airplay and download components in compiling the charts.

If Bob the Builder got the millennium off to a novel(ty) start, it has been followed by some fairly uninspiring chart toppers. Robbie and Nicole, Girls Aloud and Gary Jules made the early running for Band Aid and last year X Factor winner Shane Ward started a trend that almost guarantees this year's No 1 will be from that show. In other words, if there's any justice, Leone . . . the girl with the Mariah Carey lungs . . . will be having a very merry Christmas. But it won't be on Top Of The Pops.