The New Year's Eve broadcast comedy watched annually in Germany and several other countries is Dinner for One.
Dinner for One is a short English-language sketch originally performed in a British music-hall style. It centers on Miss Sophie, who celebrates her 90th birthday with a formal dinner attended in imagination by four absent friends. Her butler, James, serves each guest and increasingly struggles with the repeated toasts.
The sketch became a German New Year's Eve television tradition after a recording was broadcast by Norddeutscher Rundfunk in 1963. It is also shown in countries including Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia, with scheduling and dubbed or subtitled versions varying by country.
Despite its enormous German-speaking audience, the program was not originally a German production and is performed in English. The catchphrase “The same procedure as every year” is closely associated with the sketch and its annual holiday repetition.