70s TV & WKRP lovers (1 Viewer)

[Elena S]

Thought you 70s TV fans might want to know that KTLA is having a retro week June 2-6 with Taxi, Barney Miller, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Welcome Back Kotter, and WKRP airing during their primetime hours. I don't know if these are all unedited episodes -- probably not -- but I'm hoping at least the WKRP ones have much of the music intact. They're showing the Pilot, the Turkey episode, the funeral home commercial one, and one from '82 (possibly the final ep). Each night features a different show.

They're also going to start airing WKRP on a regular basis beginning Sunday evenings in June, followed by Newhart and the Honeymooners. With all the uproar over WKRP's first season fiasco on DVD, it's unlikely we'll see more seasons released, so this may be a way to catch the rest of the run.

 

[MatthewA]

They probably won't.

20th Century Fox TV does not have the rights to use the unmolested episodes in any format, and would have to re-clear the music for TV broadcast as well as DVD.

The only chance of this happening is if KTLA kept the same tapes they used when they originally had the rights, which is unlikely. When stations stop airing reruns of a library show, they send the tapes back to the distributor.

 

[Elena S]

So you're saying these episodes most likely have the music removed?

 

[MatthewA]

All I can say is that I would be extremely surprised if it did have the original music, and was not the same music-replaced editions circulating since the mid-1990s.

 

[Albert_M]

The only "uproar" is the tiny, very very tiny portion of the population who participates in forums such as this.

I read no outcry from outside this bubble.

How well did it sell?

 

[Dan*T]

Thanks for the heads up!!
I love WKRP so much that I would take it edited or not. It's that good!!

 

[wh5916]

No season two has been announced, and season one was released well over a year ago.

There was quite an outcry from potential purchasers at amazon.com as well, myself included.

 

[David Levine]

It sold quite well for an 80s sitcom. Right on par with MTM, Bob Newhart and Cheers. I'd say solidly in the tier behind bigger sellers like All in the Family, Sanford and Son and Soap.

As much as I don't like to admit it, I don't think there is any way that it would've picked up enough additional sales to cover the music clearance costs if it would've been fully (or at least "more") cleared.

 

[MatthewA]

Wait a minute, I thought MTM was the gold standard for "poor sales."

 

[TravisR]

One doesn't necessarily cancel out the other. Fox wanted a certain number of sales and apparently it missed by far but the number they did sell could still be on par with the sales of other 1970's/1980's sitcoms.

 

[David Levine]

It's possible it was a slow starter, but MTM put up very respectable numbers. It's not Friends or Seinfeld, but I'd guess as far as sitcom sales go, it's in the upper 80%.

 

[MatthewA]

So were they lying when they claimed poor sales? Why, then, did they stall for 3 years between seasons 1 and 2 and pull the plug after season 4?

There's more to this than meets the eye.

 

[David Levine]

No idea. Maybe it's a more expensive show to put out for some reason or another, maybe they had unreal expectations. It's also possible that since it was such an early "TV on DVD" (2002), that it took a couple years to really start selling.

Looking at the numbers, it had a fair first year, did half that the 2nd, had a horrible 3rd year and then has picked up a lot in years 4-6 (back to year 2 numbers). I'm guessing that big upswing in sales had a lot to do with greenlighting seasons 2-4. I wonder if rushing out those 3 seasons (less than 6 months apart) has anything to do with them holding off on S5?

 

[MatthewA]

Is that just the first season?

I assume (and hope) that exposure on the Oprah show helped sales in an upward position.

 

[TonyD]

So by 70s TV & WKRP lovers and KTLA you mean only those people
who live in whatever city that particular tv station broadcasts to.

 

[Tony S]

That and the fact that they dropped the MSRP from $70 to $30.

 

[heathjack]

I think their staring to show mary talor more on wgn network. their doing flasback to the 70's it was on tonight. their going to show it every week.

 

[Elena S]

No......the station is available to Dish network viewers and I believe to Direct TV viewers as well. It's not a part of the programming packages but is available by request along with WGN, WWOR, WSBK, and WPIX.

 

[Jay_B!]

ALN airs the original episodes if I recall. I am no WKRP expert, but if I recall, the episodes that have aired in recent years have nothing but replaced music, right? I saw the infamous Thanksgiving episode on ALN several months ago and you heard the Pink Floyd record playing in the classic scene, wasn't that removed from recent syndication?

 

[AndyMcKinney]

the exact same "70s retro" programming block that Elena mentioned as running on KTLA is running on WGN America (formerly WGN Superstation) this week, with "voiceovers" in and out of the commercials by Casey Kasem. Looking at KTLA's schedule online (which only indicates CW programming in primetime for this week), I think Elena got her wires crossed and meant to say WGN instead.