TV

‘Duck Dynasty’ marathon delivers green Christmas for A&E

A&E is dreaming of a green Christmas.

The high-minded execs who booted “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson for anti-gay comments aren’t above cashing in with a Christmas Day marathon of the money-making show.

The cable network’s Web site says A&E will air 25 consecutive episodes of its top show, starting at 3:30 pm Christmas day and continuing until 4 a.m. Thursday.

And Phil will be front and center in many of them, including “Drag Me to Glory” and “Quack-O-Lantern.”

The move means advertising revenue from cable TV’s top-rated reality show will continue to pour in.

And it may also be a sop to fans furious over Robertson’s suspension for remarks made in an interview with GQ magazine in which the devout Christian criticized homosexuality as sinful.

“I think, honestly, it’s A&E trying to play both sides of the coin,” Cate Meighan of Celeb Dirty Laundry told Fox News. “They’ve come out and not supported Phil’s statements… however they’re also looking at the backlash from the fans, and they have a huge amount of backlash from the fans.”

Phil RobertsonAP

The hit show – about a backwoods Louisiana family that runs a multi-million dollar company manufacturing duck calls and other hunting gear – generated more than $80 million in advertising sales for A&E this year through September, according to Kantar Media.

That’s more than four times the amount the show earned in 2012.

“It is really a money thing,” Meighan said. “You’re going to have the same people tuning into ‘Duck Dynasty’ that always have and the same people not watching that always have.”

More than 14 million people watch the show, whose fifth season was set to premier early next year before Robertson was suspended.

Now, the rest of the Robertson clan, which earns about $200,000 per episode – is threatening to abandon the program unless Phil is reinstated.

While gay activists and others applauded the suspension, it caused a huge backlash among fans on social media.

The Facebook page “Boycott A&E Until Phil Robertson Is Put Back On Duck Dynasty” had 1,796,381 likes as of 11:20 a.m. Tuesday and online petitions have also be swamped with support.