How come certain movies never make it to cable? (1 Viewer)

[Rob Varto]

Now that HBO and Showtime have the capability to air many movies in HD how come movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET, etc never make it to cable or satellite? Is it a licensing thing? I remember back in the day, I think when ON was the big cable thing, wasn't Star Wars on that ?

 

[Brett Cameron]

The premium channels only have a limited license. Usually it's two one and a half year runs of each title. For example-

Heat has been running on HBO lately. It came out theatrically in '95, ended up exactly a year later ,like most movies, on HBO- HBO then played the movie for a year and a half(probably till early '98) then NBC had the rights to show the movie for the next few years and when they were done the rights reverted back to HBO to show the movie for one more year.

Star Wars,ET,Indiana etc. have probably already had their full two runs on pay cable. It is then up to the distributor to sell the movie in more pay cable runs(this is why you see Lethal Weapon on just about every pay cable station since Warner probably had it in a package of older movies that they sold to the pay stations) or just to basic cable.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Actually, last I checked CBS had the exclusive rights to ET

 

[Derrick_Ellis]

I always wondered how that worked, and why you would see the same set of movies over and over again on cable. Thanks for clearing that up. Now if they ran Indiana Jones over and over, I wouldn't mind.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Raiders used to run on HBO all the time -- in the 80s. More recently, I've seen Temple of Doom show up on at least one cable channel (Sci-Fi?), and the Star Wars films pop up from time to time, usually for a special holiday showing.

M.

 

[Justin1]

For the first run, typically, HBO has the rights to Warner Bros. movies, Starz usually gets New Line Cinema and Dreamworks, while Fox, Columbia, and Universal divy up their movies to the highest bidder taking no consideration for studio-wide contracts.

I am not 100% sure on this info, but I am sure someone can verify its truthfulness.

 

[Brett Cameron]

E.T has been running on TNT for the past 4 years or so, CBS use to show it(the movie took 6 years to come to video, I'm not sure if it was shown on pay cable). The special edition might run on Starz next year since it is a new Universal release(I haven't seen The Exorcist SE run on HBO/Cinemax even though it was a WB release so I am not sure). Star Wars A New Hope is syndicated and also shows on TBS. Jaws did show up on HDTV when ABC showed it 2 years ago. Also I remember reading that Paramount sold a syndicated High-Def package of films to stations that included Raiders. It should show up soon on a high def station(most likely a UPN or WB affiliate).

 

[Butch C]

I always wondered why Blood in Blood out runs 100 times then not again for a couple of years...then 100 times again

LOVE THAT DAMN FILM