For the longest time, CBS was the king of eternal holiday specials. All the greats could be found there: Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown. That started changing as licenses lapsed and some specials escaped to other networks — or streaming. In 2023 CBS’s Christmas lineup was down to Rudolph and the two Frosty cartoons, and this year it turns out they won’t even have those.
Rudolph has left CBS for the first time since 1972. That’s a 52-year streak that was just broken! Before then, NBC was the original home of the stop-motion tale of our merry band of misfits. The peacock network plans to welcome them with a super-deluxe 75-minute uncut premiere on Friday, December 6 at 8 PM, restoring scenes not seen since they originally had it. Ironically, 2024 marks this special’s 60th birthday.
As for Frosty, the snowman has never known a home outside of CBS…it has run exclusively on that network since its debut in 1969. Rankin-Bass sold a sequel to ABC in 1976, but CBS made their own in 1992. The first special will appear on NBC for the first time Thursday, December 5 at 8:30 PM; the fate of Frosty Returns is unscheduled and unknown. I know some people hate it, but I don’t.
So…what happened? Why would CBS take its heavily trademarked eye off such a prize? There is no official statement, but it’s likely for the same reason that they also lost the rights to the Grammys two days ago. CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is buried in massive debt and may be letting go of long-held licenses as a way of grabbing quick cash any way they can. Also note how Warner Bros, which has a debt of its own to deal with, has been doing things like dumping their NBA cable rights.
But hey…it may be a new place on the dial, but at least Rudolph and Frosty are still on broadcast. You can’t say that about Charlie Brown right now.
