Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

no dvd for you

Ever wonder why some television shows have been released on DVD, while other classics (or not-so-classics) have yet to find their way onto store shelves? According to a story at Wired News, music may be partly to blame. (“Copyrights Keep TV Shows off DVD” - 03/01/05)

WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the most popular television shows of the late ’70s and early ’80s, but it is unlikely ever to be released on DVD because of high music-licensing costs.

The show, which centered on a fledging radio station with a nerdy news director and wild disc jockeys, had a lively soundtrack, playing tunes from rock ‘n’ rollers like Ted Nugent, Foreigner, Elton John and the Eagles.

For many TV shows, costs to license the original music for DVD are prohibitively high, so rights owners replace the music with cheaper tunes, much to the irritation of avid fans. And some shows, like WKRP, which is full of music, will probably never make it to DVD because of high licensing costs…

But serious fans want the whole show, not mangled scenes missing critical music.

“The fans don’t want syndicated cuts. They don’t want the songs replaced. They don’t want anything censored for political correctness. They want to see it in the way they originally saw it broadcast, enjoyed it and fell in love with it,” Lambert said. “You can almost always count on some music replacement. We’ve got entire theme songs being replaced.”

I can imagine that the problem is worse with older television shows, where syndication and other forms of redistribution weren’t necessarily issues to consider when the episodes were originally produced. Like other contracts involving the redistribution of material in different media, hopefully more recent shows take DVD distribution into account when they make the original licensing deals. (Although the example of American Dreams cited in the article isn’t wholly reassuring.)

It is frustrating as a viewer / fan to watch a DVD of a television show (or movie, for that matter — I’m looking at you, George Lucas) that’s been altered from the way it was originally released. If I’m going to shell out money for a DVD set, I want the definitive version, the same version that everyone else saw, the same version that first aired on television.

A postmodern thought: In an age where pop culture touchstones can be altered with each redistribution, what is definitive? How do you reconcile the collective memory of that touchstone, splintered by so many iterations? What version is the “real” one?

(Link found via Hacking Netflix.)