Yule Log (TV Program) - Canceling and Revival

Canceling and Revival

From 1974 until 1989, a special message by then WPIX-TV vice president and general manager Richard N. Hughes usually preceded the program, which was broadcast every Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and sometimes both. The cost of broadcasting the program without commercial interruption prompted a new WPIX general manager, Michael Eigner, to cancel it in 1990 — the same year that director Whit Stillman included a scene of a New Yorker viewing the Log in his movie Metropolitan. Despite hundreds of protesting letters, the program was not broadcast. Beginning in 1997, WPIX offered various versions of The Yule Log on the Internet.

In March 2000, Yule Log fan Joseph Malzone of Totowa, New Jersey created a web site named "Bring Back The Log" (now named TheYuleLog.com, and administered by Lawrence F. "Chip" Arcuri), and petitioned station management to broadcast The Yule Log again. In December 2001, WPIX VP/General Manager Betty Ellen Berlamino announced on WPLJ radio that the special would return after eleven years of not being broadcast. Berlamino explained that people wanted "comfort food TV" as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The digitally restored program was the most-watched television program in the metropolitan New York area for Christmas Day of that year and has been broadcast annually since.

Program Director Julie O'Neil found the original master film of the 1970 fireplace in WPIX's film archives in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The master film was misfiled in a Honeymooners film can marked with the episode title “A Dog’s Life,” which resulted in a 2006 40th anniversary special about the Log being named A Log’s Life. In 2009, a fourth hour featuring 22 new songs and seven new artists was added to the program.