TV Q&A: Will the Netflix Steelers game air locally?

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions weekly at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.

Q: Will the Steelers Christmas game be available to fans without Netflix?

— Ed, via email

Rob: Yes! Netflix’s deal for carrying NFL games on Christmas Day includes a provision for the games to air on local, linear TV stations in the hometown markets of the teams playing.

For this year’s Steelers-Chiefs game on Christmas Day (1 p.m. Dec. 25), the game will be broadcast locally on KDKA-TV, Channel 2.

Mariah Carey canceled her Pittsburgh performance earlier this month, but she will star in a game day Show Open, offering a taped performance of “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

CBS Sports’ Ian Eagle will be the play-by-play commentator with CBS’s Nate Burleson and JJ Watt providing color commentary. CBS’s Melanie Collins and NFL Network’s Stacey Dales will serve as sideline reporters.

Q: This seems to pop up every Christmas season: Why doesn’t anyone ever air “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”? It hasn’t been on in a very long time.

— Jeff, North Side

Rob: Nothing lasts forever, particularly a Christmas special that doesn’t retain the popularity of the Grinch or Rudolph, which “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” pre-dates.

It’s been a while since “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” aired on one of the major broadcast channels, possibly back to 2012 when NBC aired the show to mark its 50th anniversary in a telecast derided for its poorly-timed commercial break insertions by Magoo historian Darrell Van Citters, who wrote a book about “Magoo’s Christmas Carol” that’s now out of print.

“Since after its first few airings, it’s been the red-headed stepchild, which was evidenced by its lack of presence in the rerun market and home video, where the prints were awful,” Van Citters said. “After the book and with a little prod from me, (Classic Media) went back to the negative and did a new transfer, which for the most part is gorgeous.”

Van Citters told me that “Classic Media owns the property but they were acquired by Dreamworks some years back, which was then acquired by the NBC/Universal/Comcast behemoth. It’s somewhat fitting as the special first aired on NBC in 1962.”

Despite that ownership, I could not find “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” on Peacock this year — it appears it was streamed on Peacock last December — but it is available as a VOD title on YouTube and on Amazon’s Prime Video. It also streams on a subscription site called Indixpix. The special is also available for purchase on DVD.

Q: We hope you have some information to share about a favorite Christmas movie we always watch. It’s called “The Christmas Tree” and stars Julie Harris and Andrew McCarthy. My research tells me it was filmed in Pittsburgh and released in 1996, directed by Sally Field.

We wonder why it doesn’t seem to be available on any of the streaming platforms?

— Jan and Jim, Ligonier

Rob: In the history of American television, thousands of TV movies and miniseries have been produced. How many of them air with any regularity? Almost none. Even ‘80s/’90s hits like “North and South,” “The Burning Bed” and “The Winds of War” rarely get reshown these days, so it’s unrealistic to expect a minor TV movie to re-air, particularly one from the pre-Hallmark Channel era.

The reason these old films don’t re-air are many: They look dated. There’s largely no audience for it, particularly if it didn’t get great ratings when it premiered. The commercial break timing is off because these movies were made when there were fewer commercials per hour, so to make it compatible with today’s running times someone would have to go in and re-edit it, an expense its owner likely does not want to incur.

“The Christmas Tree” was indeed filmed in Pittsburgh and originally aired on ABC. Retired Pittsburgh film critic Barbara Vancheri shared with me her recollections covering the movie, including visiting the set of the $3 million production about a New York landscape architect (Andrew McCarthy) whose job includes finding the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree each year. He thinks he’s located it on the grounds of a remote convent, but a nun (Julie Harris) who has lived with Tree — as she lovingly calls it —since childhood doesn’t want to part with it.

The mansion at Hartwood Acres doubled as the convent and was the main reason the production came to Pittsburgh, Vancheri recalled.

Filming took place in October, Vancheri said, “so the production had to make snow at Hartwood Acres using ice, soapy foam, cotton and a tank labeled Unreal Snow that sprayed an authentic-looking white powder that could be washed away.”

It appears that at some point “The Christmas Tree” did rerun on Disney Channel. Per JustWatch.com, “The Christmas Tree” does not appear to be available on any streaming service currently and I could find no evidence of a DVD release.

But I do have some good news: Someone uploaded a pretty crisp copy of the movie to YouTube where you can stream it for free at youtube.com/watch?v=1FdY0MV27IY — at least until the owner makes a copyright claim and it gets taken down.

A book by the same writers who have credits on the TV movie along with Field — the book inspired the film — is also available for purchase at Amazon.com.