Mariah Carey can’t be the only ‘Queen of Christmas’ after losing trademark bid to Kris Kross
Updated
The singer has seen her Christmas special reduced from 55 minutes to 30 seconds, while it now runs at the same length as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
She’s been a fixture of TV’s Christmas countdown since 2005 and in recent years has added the annual Christmas film classic The Christmas Tree to her line-up.
But last month, Carey’s annual Christmas special The Christmas Hits had to be shortened by 23 minutes for TV, which went on air at 6.30pm and on a Saturday night.
A Christmas special featuring Miley Cyrus was downgraded from 30 minutes to 19 minutes – with a TV schedule that now has her on at about 7.30pm.
And the biggest change is in the time taken to introduce Santa Claus.
On the original version, he comes out of the chimney at 6.37 and then talks about Christmas.
“Now Santa comes out of the chimney and there is a countdown for 10 seconds. The whole thing runs about 4 minutes,” Carey’s attorney Steve Feldman told Yahoo7.
“The problem we have is that Miley Cyrus is making this Christmas special in December, and we just don’t want somebody who is not going to be here in December to be on.”
He added: “We are going for what is best for the child.”
Hopes were high at the start of the two-day hearing in Los Angeles on Friday that the full length of Carey’s Christmas special would be restored and the music industry would get the $1.2 million fee that it had demanded for its use of the song.
But after a couple of days, it looks like fans of Carey may have more bad news to face.
The Christmas Hits’ full length is now 40 minutes and is reduced to just 30 minutes.
The 30 minute version of the special will air on the US network ABC on December 2 – after it has been cleared by NBC and Disney.
The 30 minute version has been approved for prime time by the US broadcast regulator and will air on ABC.
But there’s still no word on when the ABC version will be aired on other