Limes with Orange

I came across this article on Wired the other day: "Copyrights Keep TV Shows off DVD." It starts out by saying "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." I hadn't really thought about that side of things before. But when it went on to explain that "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," I found myself thinking that I would definitely be one of those irritated fans.

The article then quoted David Lambert, news director of TVShowsOnDVD.com, saying "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." Very true. And "I think the studios are a bit shortsighted. A lot of fans -- if they understood the situation -- would gladly wait a little longer and pay a little more to get the complete, original version." Also true, at least in my case.

I thought about the songs that I will forever associate with certain scenes from TV shows: "Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan with the final scene of the final episode from season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played after Buffy had to kill Angel; "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley with the third season finale of The West Wing, played as CJ finds out that her secret service agent/love interest has been killed (check out my Hallelujah post for more about that song); or, to use the first show mentioned here, the episode of WKRP about the guy who wants to defect from Russia that features Elton John's "Tiny Dancer." If I were to watch these episodes on DVD and discover that they'd replaced those songs with something else, I would be outraged and the emotional impact of those scenes would be forever lessened for me. Thankfully, I know that the Buffy DVDs are intact... at least for all of the songs that stick in my memory. I don't have The West Wing DVDs yet, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed there.

I only hope that my favourite shows have champions like Moonlighting creator and executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron: "I was unwilling to replace the music. I felt that was integral to the show. That really stymied its video and DVD release for years." This attitude combined with two years of lobbying by fans has made Moonlighting one of the success stories. The first two seasons of the show are scheduled for release this May with the music intact. Way to set an example!

P.S. I just did a Google search and found out that they did in fact replace "Tiny Dancer" in WKRP episodes that air on The Comedy Network and TNN. Bastards!

Labels: music, tv