'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' was Blocked on Hulu and subscribers are not happy

As December arrives, the holiday season is in full swing. Holiday movies will start airing on OTT platforms in abundance. However, the television network CBS didn't waste any time as the Christmas classic, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer was aired on Tuesday, December 1. However, the only problem was that many Hulu users were unable to play the classic Christmas movie even though it was available on the streaming platform. This happened because the streaming service unexpectedly blocked the movie while many users were trying to stream it. Here’s what happened.

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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer blocked on Hulu

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was blocked on Hulu because it was already airing on CBS, which owns the streaming rights to the 1964 stop-motion animation. It took merely a few minutes before the company's support page on Twitter was inundated with angry subscribers ranting about the movie now being available. With costs of a Hulu subscription being above $50-60 for many, the blackout of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer left many users feeling shorted the amount they are paying.

Why can't I watch Rudolph on Hulu live?

However, here’s the catch it wasn’t just Hulu that blacked out while subscribers were trying to play Christmas movie, it happened on YouTube as well. While many viewers tuned in to CBS to watch the special, many others turned to stream services like Hulu and YouTube TV, but even YouTube TV was not streaming it. Replying to many angry netizens, Hulu informed that the film had blacked out due to CBS’ voting rights.

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In addition to blocking the airing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, CBS also delayed a new episode of NCIS. NCIS official website reveals that the new episode will have to wait another week. The CBS series, which typically airs on Tuesday night, was bumped from the schedule, as the network is busy celebrating the start of December by airing Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer at 8 p.m. ET.

Hence the 18th season of NCIS' episode three will air next Tuesday and is titled Blood and Treasure. According to the show's page, the episode follows the team as they discover two dead bodies that result in them delving into the world of modern-day treasure hunting. Moreover, Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), and Tobias Fornell will continue their search for the drug kingpin. The latest season premiered on Nov. 17 after a six-month break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Here’s how netizens reacted to the situation 

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