Here's When You Can Watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on TV This Year
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Tis the season for Christmas movies! From Elf to Home Alone, there are so many classics to watch during the holiday season. While many of these films can be found on Netflix or Hulu, there's one special that you'll usually have to mark the date for: A Charlie Brown Christmas!
This year, A Charlie Brown Christmas will air on PBS and PBS Kids on Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. ET / 6:30 p.m. CT. This is the first year ever that the animated classic will air on PBS.
For background, the beloved 1965 movie, based on the comics created by Charles M. Schulz, has aired on network television every holiday season for the last five decades. It follows the Peanuts gang as they discover the true meaning of Christmas. Up until 2000, CBS was the go-to network to catch all Peanuts specials; however, ABC earned the rights to the franchise in 2001. In October, news broke that Apple TV+ had exclusively claimed the rights to all of the Peanuts holiday specials. In fact, the Peanuts Halloween special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, was not shown on television this year for the first time in 54 years.
Viewers who were accustomed to annually tuning into network TV were outraged. As a result, a Change.org petition was started to bring back the holiday classics to TV. Following the outcry, Apple TV+ teamed up with PBS and PBS Kids in November to offer the specials on network television again — with just enough time for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to air.
If you're already an Apple TV+ subscriber, you can start streaming A Charlie Brown Christmas on December 4, 2020. The holiday special will be available for all to enjoy for free from December 11 through December 13, 2020.
