Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times) - Page 2

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

If FOX was smart they would pair up the remaining seasons of MTM w/the Bob Newhart Show as they go hand in hand imo.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Fantastic news!

Like everyone else, I'm hoping that this will get the final two seasons of Bob Newhart released and maybe get Rhoda started. Not so sure about Phyliss. It only lasted two seasons, so we may never see that one. I'd love it if we did, but I'm not holding my breath for Phyliss. Rhoda, yes. Rhoda and Room 222 are the two shows on the top of my wish list.

Bring on the rest of Mary. The final Teddy Awards episode has Georgette singing a great version of Steam Heat. Not sure if this can be cleared or not, but I really hope so. It's such a great moment.

Fox, please, please try and keep as much of the original music as possible. You can do much better than the WKRP release.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

An ambitious bootlegger could have done better than the WKRP release.

Fox cleared Steam Heat for a Family Guy Volume 1 episode.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Finally, someone who sees it my way!!
Paramount has really surprised me with their releases! I'm just hoping that Jake & the Fatman & Cannon get full season sets! And we may get the entire series run before we all retire, which is more than I can say for so many in my collection.
Back to Mary, it was one of the first sets I ever purchased, and is truly a classic. It's about bloody time.
I'm hoping that some others from Fox get a chance now as well. As much as I like Mary, I always preffered Rhoda. I would love to see that released.
Also, finishing WKRP and The Fall guy is on the top of my abandoned list...
Who knows, maybe there IS hope..
Is anyone from Fox watching this thread?? Let's hope!

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

An ambitious bootlegger would not have to pay for any music. So what exactly is the basis for comparison?

As for "Steam Heat," we have no idea how the rights for that song were cleared for the original broadcasts. Certainly, when Georgette sang it, nobody was psychic enough to buy the song for all media, because who could have predicted they would need anything but broadcast rights? By the time "Family Guy" premiered, the negotiation for clearing the song might well have allowed for all media, in perpetuity.

Neither comparison is apples to apples.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

An ambitious bootlegger, if he could track down uncut versions of all 90 episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati with original music, presumably taped from TV, while Fox has unaltered masters in their possession but cannot release barring some miracle, and if the quality was decent, could release, albeit illegally, something superior to what Fox put out.


In 1999? They don't even clear music for all media NOW (exhibit A: My Name is Earl, also produced by Fox). The only TV DVDs then were single-disc compilations of The Twilight Zone and Beavis and Butt-Head (music video-free), and the only way most shows came out on video was through Columbia House.

The exact same studio would be dealing with the exact same publishing company to clear the exact same song. Not to mention White Christmas, cleared on one Fox show (King of the Hill) but not another (The Mary Tyler Moore Show).

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

As somebody who works in television, let me tell you, there is no one "they," even at the same studio. True, 1999 would have been somewhat ahead of the curve (granted, a curve we're still turning), but not impossibly so.

I worked on shows in the late '90s where, when we looked into clearing a song, we were given a menu of choices: $X for two year domestic broadcast rights, $Y for domestic broadcast in perpetuity, $Z for all media, etc.

And other times, with different music publishers (or just different days), we got none of that information.

A couple of times, when the price differential between two-year broadcast and perpetuity all media rights was not so high, we said "What the hell?" and chose the more expensive option. (At the time, we weren't anticipating DVDs, but there was a thought in the air that clips would wind up on multi-media CD-ROMs. Shows what we knew!)

Sometimes, more recently, we were so close to air and still missing a song that we had to buy the song everybody wanted in only broadcast rights, because the broadcast date was bearing down on us and we knew we'd just have to sort it out later if there was a DVD. Not ideal, but realistically, it happens. And it's not because nobody was aware of the DVD issue, or that we were lazy, or not thinking. It just happens because the air version is coming up first, so it's your first priority.

Again, the only thing you can know is that these things often appear random. On the most recent show I did, we wanted to clear a song and were quoted an astronomically high price. Weeks later, we saw that another show produced by the same studio for the same network used that same song. How did they afford it? It turned out, some members of the band that owned the song were annoyed by how cheaply (they thought) the song was sold to that other show (they only found out about it afterward -- I suppose a manager or somebody was speaking for them a the time of the sale). So they were going to make us make up for it! I'm sure in their minds, it was the same studio and network, so it was all fair. But of course, our show had a finite budget, and we had to find another song.

The point is, don't make assumptions!

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Exactly. Just because Fox cleared Steam Heat for Family Guy doesn't mean that they will get it cleared for Mary Tyler Moore.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

It also should go without saying, but maybe doesn't, that if "Steam Heat" costs, say, $10,000 to clear, that's easily affordable for a DVD set that will sell in the millions and not so for a show that will sell under 100,000.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Family Guy was not a hit in its original run (first three seasons). The fact that it sold as well as it did on DVD came as a shock to everyone involved.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Indeed. But the reason it even came to DVD is that animated shows have a history of selling well. As you say, they did not expect it to sell THAT well (just as they didn't expect Mary Tyler Moore to sell THAT poorly), so my numbers are slightly unfair, but the premise is not invalid.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Here is a premise for fox.. take some $$ out of the zillions you made on Family Guy to clear the song for MTM. There problem solved.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Thanks for the inside information Mike.

Not that it makes much difference but Steam Heat is part of a big plot point in the episode it was used and the story probably would not make much sense if it was cut. On the season 1 Christmas episode, Mary singing 2 lines of the song White Christmas coming out of a commercial, while charming and missed by many, was not essential to the plot which was about Mary having to work alone on Christmas Eve. Its been a while since I have seen the episode but I believe she also listened to the Nutcracker Suite (Public Domain) which kind of made the same point as White Christmas in the story.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

Several Months back i had placed an Order for the MTM seasons. But something came up and i had to cancel it. I was all set to order the 4-seasons yesterday when the news came out that the final 3 seasons may only be released in a complete series set. So now i guess i am in limbo and have to play the waiting game till something official comes down. What a bummer that is

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

The studios need to sneak legislation through Congress that fixes the royalty rates for songs when used on DVDs. Kind of like when an internet radio station plays a song.

Re: Final 3 Seasons of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to be Released by Fox (NY Times)

That is just a rumor. Read the stroy here:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show DVD news: Rumors about The Mary Tyler Moore Show | TVShowsOnDVD.com

Fox has not made any definite decisions on how (full series set or individual season sets) the final three seasons are going to come out. Everything is up in the air. All we know for sure is that Fox is going to release the rest of the series at some point.