IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
USA, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1948 Frank Capra film used to be everywhere on TV during the holiday season, for a reason that had more to do with Scrooge-like greed than Santa-like good will. The copyright to It’s a Wonderful Life had lapsed, so every local station or broadcast or cable network in the country could show it for free, and make 100 percent profit for every commercial it crammed into its telecast. Then Universal, the parent company of NBC, re-established and secured the rights, and for years now has doled it out exclusively, and sparingly. Before Christmas, it’ll show up on NBC itself, and tonight, It’s a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, gets a special showing on another Universal network, specifically USA. That’s the good news. The bad news? USA traditionally crams its programs full of absurd amounts of advertising – so watching it here, tonight, is likely to evoke a different type of nostalgia or déjà vu, for the days when local stations would show the film doing the exact same thing… and every time you hear a bell ring, someone at Universal is making money…