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After more than 50 years on CBS Christmas Classics Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer And Frosty the snowman will have a new home for the holidays this year: NBC. As part of a new multi-year licensing deal, Vulture has learned, the Comcast-owned network has secured the television rights to the popular Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, which have appeared on CBS every holiday season since Richard Nixon’s first term in office. News of the deal comes just days after Disney announced it had won the rights to another half-century CBS classic, the Grammys.

Icy has aired every year on CBS since its premiere in 1969 Rudolf has been part of Eye’s annual holiday celebrations since 1972. But despite the latter special’s close association with the Eye Network, Rudolf In fact, it began airing 60 years ago next month on NBC and was broadcast as part of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. That’s what this season’s 60th anniversary television show means Rudolf will be a homecoming for the special, and NBC has scheduled a date to mark the occasion RudolfThe series’ return will take place on Friday, December 6th at 8pm – the same day it premiered in 1964 (although, interestingly, the series premiered outside of the 5.30pm to 6.30pm prime time slot). . NBC will air their extended version of Rudolfwho devotes 75 minutes of commercials to the television show. There will also be an encore on December 11th.

What IcyIt will be televised for the first time outside of CBS the night before Rudolf, Debuts on NBC on Thursday, December 5th at 8:30 p.m., with an additional broadcast on December 11th at 8:00 p.m. But if you’re a cord cutter, be warned: Like CBS before it, NBC does not have streaming rights to the specials, at least not as of this writing. Music rights have apparently managed to keep the shows off digital subscription platforms, even though the specials can be downloaded digitally. However, NBCUniversal apparently controls the distribution rights to the two specials through its DreamWorks Animation holdings. It will be interesting to see if the move to NBC leads to a solution to the streaming problem. In the meantime, if you still have a cable login, both Rudolf And Icy are once again part of Freeform’s “25 Days of Christmas” lineup, with multiple airings of both specials scheduled beginning December 7th.

Meanwhile, NBC’s Christmas coup marks a rare disruption in the Christmas specials universe, where things are generally stable for decades. The biggest movement came in the 1960s, when RudolfNBC’s debut on CBS spurred CBS to fight back with a wave of holiday classics – all their own. The eye debuted A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 (a year later). Rudolf), then followed in 1966 Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and again with Icy 1969. In 1972, CBS moved in and stole Rudolf away from NBC, which has given the network a near monopoly on the season’s biggest Christmas classics for decades. But the Eye’s Christmas hegemony ended in 2001, when A Charlie Brown Christmas (and the other Peanuts Specials) moved to ABC (where they remained until 2020, when Apple TV+ picked them up). And then in 2015, NBC stole the Rankin Bass special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Another Rankin Bass production that is less well known but still popular Santa Claus is coming to town airs on Tuesday, December 3rd on ABC in the kid-unfriendly slot at 9pm (but then gets an encore on Sunday, December 22nd at 7pm)