Apple TV+ nabs exclusive rights to A Charlie Brown Christmas...

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and other classic Peanuts specials

https://www.vulture.com/2020/10/its-...-apple-tv.html

A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will now stream on Apple TV+ exclusive as part of a deal to produce more Peanuts holiday specials (including for Mother's Day, Earth Day and New Year's Eve), reports Josef Adalian. But does this mean the three specials won't air for free on broadcast TV as they do every year? "ABC has been the main home of Great Pumpkin and all the major Peanuts specials for the past 20 years, having snatched them away from their original home on CBS in 2000," says Adalian. "But Great Pumpkin is not currently on ABC’s advance programming specials through early November, and while a network rep indicated that could change, it would be odd for ABC not to schedule the specials by now, unless there were contractual issues (such as ABC’s deal having expired). Apple’s official press release announcing its deal for the specials only specifies that TV+ would be home to the specials and says nothing about exclusivity. However, sources familiar with the deal say that the streamer will indeed have complete exclusivity — broadcast and streaming. Peanuts specials not airing on a free, over-the-air broadcast network for the first time since the 1965 Christmas special debuted is another milestone moment in TV history." Apple said it will make the three specials available to stream for free. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will be available for free from Oct. 30 through Nov. 1, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will stream for free from Nov. 25 through Nov. 27. A Charlie Brown Christmas is expected to have a free window as well in December. ALSO: Jimmy Kimmel calls this "sneaky news": "Those of us who purchased the Peanuts specials (my favorite) from Apple are no longer able to find them in our @AppleTV library," he tweeted.

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It's "cruel" that broadcast TV lost It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and other Peanuts specials

Starting this year, the only way to see It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas is on Apple TV+ after those specials were available for free on network TV for decades. "It is a gargantuan understatement to note that there are far bigger issues to be upset about right now than the relegation of children’s animated shows to a subscription streaming service, especially since Apple TV+, at least for this year, plans to make the specials available free to nonsubscribers for short windows of time around Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas," says Jen Chaney. "But I am still upset about it. Evidently, I am not alone; (more than) 200,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding that the specials be restored to the more accessible airwaves. Is the semi-absence of Linus and his obsession with a sizable winter squash as pressing as the upcoming election or the rise in coronavirus case numbers? Of course not. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s this: It is possible to be outraged and distraught about a vast number of things at the same time. There are a few reasons why this decision, sprung upon an unsuspecting public midway through October, when they were just blissfully assuming they’d be able to watch Charlie Brown say 'I got a rock' at some point before Halloween, is upsetting. The Peanuts holiday shows are a long-standing tradition. Yes, for quite some time, you’ve been able to watch them on DVD or Blu-ray, but the fact that they would be broadcast often twice before the relevant holidays they commemorate made them available to everyone, regardless of whether they could afford a streaming subscription or a device that provides access to Apple TV+. As long as you had access to a television of any kind and a basic antenna, you and your family could watch. While it’s nice that Apple is offering some amount of complimentary access to these shows, that still isn’t enough to make them accessible to everyone. The pandemic has made what should have been clear long ago abundantly so: that some families cannot afford the same technological luxuries — and yes, that includes things as seemingly basic as high-speed internet and Wi-Fi — as everyone else. Given the financial hardships that the pandemic has wrought, even more people may be cutting back on unnecessary expenses, including digital devices and subscriptions. Watching The Great Pumpkin or A Charlie Brown Christmas is a ritual for a lot of Americans, one that parents — or at least baby-boomer, Gen-X, and some millennial parents who grew up watching them — relish sharing with their children. To take away that ritual during a year that has been filled with so much turmoil and heartbreak, when even trivial customs have felt sacred and special, just seems cruel."

ALSO:

• Apple TV+ making Peanuts specials streaming-only only hurts viewers: "The big disadvantage to AppleTV+ having the rights to the Peanuts holiday specials is that the service is not under the same obligations as ABC is to keep them available to the public," says Emily VanDerWerff. "ABC is, by definition, a broadcast network. If you are able to get a US TV signal — even for free, via an antenna — you will almost certainly be able to get ABC. That fact will always be true. Thus, as long as the Peanuts specials aired on ABC, nearly everybody in the US had access to them. AppleTV+ can make no such promises about access to its content. Sure, the Peanuts holiday specials will be widely available for free for a limited time this year, and Apple will surely continue using this approach as a marketing tactic for at least a few more years, as it tries to convince consumers it has a streaming service they might want to sample. But there’s nothing stopping Apple from just deciding, whenever it wants, to stop offering a free distribution window. It could even reverse its decision this year, without much explanation or warning (that is unlikely to happen, but it could)."
• What it's like to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with a 5-year-old in 2020

[Hawkee]

Ever since they announced the debut of Snoopy In Space last year AppleTV wants to become Peanuts king and with the exclusive rights of A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and other Peanuts holiday specials AppleTV is a step closer to making that dream come true. As you know I think AppleTV is trying to be second in line to Netflix when it comes to cartoons and besides having cartoons for adults and college age people I think the Peanuts cartoon specials will bring AppleTV huge ratings and as I already mentioned before a new Peanuts cartoon will be debuting on AppleTV next year so that alone will get high ratings for AppleTV
Bestie

[DadTheKing]

Hi, Bestie! I never like Charlie Brown Christmas specials. It taught children things like waving your arms and wishing will make a dead tree into a Christmas tree. That is the problem with the world today. Too many wishers and not enough doers. Apple TV can have Charlie Brown and good riddance.
DTK

[howilu]

I am mixed about the Peanuts specials moving off of ABC and on to Apple TV+. It marks the end of an era after 55 years when viewers like me can watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Great Pumpkin and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving every year.

On the other hand, as I have aged, to me, the Peanuts cartoons have worn out their welcome because there is too much bullying, especially from Lucy toward Charlie Brown. Bullying has been a problem in our schools for years and those cartoons show a prime example of it.

[Charley Knox]

Originally Posted by howilu

On the other hand, as I have aged, to me, the Peanuts cartoons have worn out their welcome because there is too much bullying, especially from Lucy toward Charlie Brown. Bullying has been a problem in our schools for years and those cartoons show a prime example of it.

Good grief! Pulling the football away at the last second, or charging the neurotic blockhead a nickel for therapy is not a form of bullying.

Maybe she went a little over the edge, when she didn't get cast as the Christmas queen in the school's nativity play.

Maybe like Helga on Hey Arnold, Lucy might had a secret crush on Charlie Brown and tried hiding it by being tougher on him.

[merlinjones]

PBS now has a deal with Apple - A Charlie Brown Christmas plays on PBS Sunday December 13.