2022 has not been kind so far. The turkey drop was my favorite WKRP episode. Gone at the age of 81 due to complications from surgery.
RIP Dr. Johnny Fever
- Thread starter cycloner29
- Start date
Cheers and WKRP were "must watch" for me. Gonna miss Johnny Fever.
The Motor City Madman's "Queen of the Forest".
I just re-watched the series a few months ago. Not sure why seasons 2-4 aren't available for streaming anywhere in general, but I got the series set on DVD because they're not, and because it contains most of the original music. Great show. RIP Dr. Johnny Fever.
Loni Loni Loni.
For gawds sake the network had to ask her to cover up an area because she looked cold...
40 years after the last show, 10 things you didn’t know about ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’
The last episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati” aired 40 years ago on April 21, 1982. Here are 10 Cincinnati facts you might not know about the popular sitcom.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Streaming rights for the original music is the answer to your question. In fact, the first set of WKRP DVDs that were released had generic music dubbed in over the songs played when the show aired, because the rights agreements made with the music copyright holders were only for broadcast, not for home-sale rights - and they didn’t have any concept of “streaming” in their minds at the time. The DVD set that restored much of the original music took a massive amount of renegotiation.
(I’m not sure why they wouldn’t stream the episodes with the generic first-DVD music replacing the originals, but that’s above my pay grade.)
This is the same kind of issue that’s keeping many TV shows of that era off streaming services - the amount of work it would take to track down the rightsholders of all the incidental music is just not worth it to the owners of the TV shows.
It affects recently released shows as well. The spin-off to The Goldbergs, Schooled, had episodes rapidly disappear from Hulu. It contained at least one song an episode from the 90's, much like the parent show has from the 80's. It's probably one of those things where they secured the broadcast rights and then limited time streaming rights for a song and then that's it.
