As Of Summer 2014, Where Do We Stand With CBS (1 Viewer)

With the announcement of the final season of Dynasty and Bonanza Season 7, I think now might be a good time to look at the way they might handle classic TV releases from here out. Here's some possibilites. Take you own best guess.

1) Rotating, but less regular releases of Bonanza and Gunsmoke only. I think this is the most likely scenerio.

2) The above plus continuations of Hillbillies and/or Petticoat and/or Happy Days.

3) A new one thrown into the mix with a combo of possibilites 1 and 2. Shows like High Chapparal and Our Miss Brooks have already been remastered as reported by the syndication bible. Shows like The Rebel and Ben Casey are still on the shelf as well.

4) A return to some stalled series. The most likely here would be Barnaby Jones and Love Boat.

5) Resumption of the presumed dead MOD program. Seasons 4 and 5 of Cannon anyone? My personal opinion is they handled their MOD program horribly.

6) None of the above. Classic TV releases are stopped completely

As I already stated, I believe a hybrid of scererio 1 and 2 is the most likely, Bonanza and Gunsmoke should continue because of a strong fan base and decent demand. I do believe that of Junction, Happy Days and BH, at least one will continue. IMO the most likely being Happy Days. My own desire would be at least another couple seasons of BH but that remains to be seen. Of the three, Junction has the least demand and proboably will end up being abandoned IMO. I think scenerio 3 is a long shot but a welcome one. Not very likely though. Scenerios 4 and 5 are probably not realistic save some kind of licensing deals. But lets be real. What distirbutor is going to pay for Cannon when 3 seasons out of 5 have already been released.
As for scenerio 6, it may not be just yet, but I think we are not extremely far away. I can't fault them too much. They gave us a lot of good stuff, licensed some others and save some music replacements, did an extremely good job of bringing us a lot of classic TV from their library.

From what I understand, Happy Days and Gunsmoke are continuing. Bonanza sales have petered out so that may not. Petticoat Junction will become more and more problematic with music as the show goes on. I have a complete run of the color episodes from TV Land Canada and there is more and more music in each season.Hopefully, the licensing out of Phil Silvers to Shout is the start of a trend and not just a one-shot deal.

Acorn is another company they license out to, with the recent Barbary Coast release in mind my copy just arrived today incidentally, so hopefully here's another avenue for stalled CBS titles like Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Hotel, One Step Beyond, etc. VEI could be a license possibility as well, if they (CBS) won't be bothering themselves with MOD or standard releases anymore.

Neil Brock said:

Hopefully, the licensing out of Phil Silvers to Shout is the start of a trend and not just a one-shot deal.

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I wrote to Shout about a month ago asking about the deal for The Phil Silvers Show and they replied they didn't hear about it