Is Christmas Music Too Expensive to License for Sitcoms?

What This Project Set Out to Examine

Christmas episodes are a long-standing sitcom tradition. Nearly every major network comedy of the past 30 years has produced multiple holiday-themed episodes, often using Christmas or other holidays as a narrative anchor for character conflict, sentimentality, or satire.

This project was built to answer a simple question:

How much Christmas music do sitcoms actually use?

Rather than assuming that Christmas episodes are saturated with holiday songs, this analysis catalogued the actual music used in Christmas episodes across a sample of well-known sitcoms, tracking whether songs were:

• licensed (commercial recordings)
• public domain (traditional carols)
• or absent altogether

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What the Data Actually Shows:

To build this dataset, I started by manually reviewing episode music listings on Tunefind.com, a site that catalogs what songs appear in television episodes.

I selected five well-known sitcoms spanning different eras and focused specifically on their Christmas episodes during periods when holiday-themed programming was most common, based on findings from my earlier analysis of Christmas episodes. For each episode, I recorded whether Christmas music appeared and whether those songs were licensed recordings or public-domain carols. I then wrote a small Python script to organize the data, calculate basic metrics (such as licensed versus public-domain usage), and generate visualizations to make patterns easier to compare across shows and time periods.

Across major sitcoms analyzed — spanning the 1990s through the 2010s — one pattern is consistent:

Most Christmas episodes use little to no Christmas music at all.

Key observations from the spreadsheet:

• Licensed Christmas songs appear infrequently, even in peak-era sitcoms.
• Many Christmas episodes contain zero licensed holiday tracks.
• When music is present, it is often:
  • public-domain carols
  • brief background cues
  • or isolated moments rather than sustained themes
• Entire Christmas episodes often rely purely on dialogue, setting, and performance, not music, to signal the holiday.

Importantly, this pattern holds across decades.
The data does not show a sharp drop-off or collapse in music usage — it shows that Christmas music was never heavily used to begin with.

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Why This Matters (and Why Cost Alone Isn’t the Answer)

The initial question — “Is Christmas music too expensive to license?” — is still valid, but the data suggests a more nuanced conclusion:

Sitcoms largely chose not to rely on Christmas music, even when budgets were larger and licensing was easier.

Several plausible explanations emerge:

1. Sitcoms Signal Christmas Visually, Not Musically

Christmas episodes communicate the holiday through:

• decorations
• wardrobe
• dialogue
• plot structure (parties, family, end-of-year reflection)

Music is optional, not essential. The holiday is already legible without it.

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2. Comedy Prioritizes Timing Over Atmosphere

Unlike dramas, sitcoms are built around:

• rapid dialogue
• punchlines
• awkward silence

Continuous background music — especially familiar Christmas songs — can interfere with comedic timing or dilute jokes. Many sitcoms intentionally avoid music so the rhythm of the scene remains intact.

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3. Christmas Songs Are Culturally “Loud”

Christmas music carries heavy emotional and cultural baggage. Using a well-known song can:

• overwhelm a scene
• inject sentiment the writers didn’t intend
• pull attention away from character dynamics

Avoiding music gives writers tighter control over tone and avoids the episode from being dated.

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4. Licensing Cost Reinforces an Existing Creative Preference

Licensing costs may reinforce avoidance, but the data suggests they are not the root cause.

Even when:

• network budgets were higher
• syndication economics were stronger
• licensing environments were more permissive

sitcoms still used very little Christmas music.

In other words:

Cost may explain why music didn’t increase — not why it was absent.

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How This Fits with the Broader RewindOS Christmas Analysis

In our companion analysis on Christmas episodes and television health, we show that:

• Christmas episodes remain common
• but their function has changed

This music analysis complements that finding:

• Christmas episodes persist as narrative rituals
• not as audio spectacles
• music was never the core signal — the episode itself was

The holiday survives on structure and story, not soundtrack and it doesn’t need music.

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Final, Data-Faithful Conclusion

Sitcoms did not abandon Christmas music — they largely never relied on it in the first place.

Across decades, networks, and formats, Christmas episodes consistently used minimal music, suggesting a long-standing creative norm rather than a modern cost-driven retreat.

Licensing expense may discourage experimentation, but the evidence indicates that sitcoms have always treated Christmas music as optional.

So the next logical question for us would be if certain dramas would choose a controversial christmas song to heighten the episode? Stay tuned to find out.

If you want to see or run the Python script used for this analysis, the full repository is here:

👉 GitHub: https://github.com/jjf3/rewindos-christmas-music-cost