Every now and then you run across something that makes no sense. Absolutely none. It’s something that in a sane world would never happen, because it makes no sense.
Okay, I’m not talking about axe murders and torture chambers and other acts of cruel insanity. Those are ubiquitous enough, today, in the newspapers, and in the history books that, well, they are part of the sane world. Just not part that we care to dwell no much.
No, I’m talking about changing music and dialog in a two-decade-old TV show because of licensing fees.
Is just plum crazy, or what?
If you’ve watched “WKRP In Cincinnati” on the Comedy Network in Canada, or on TNN in the United States, or on the commercial videotapes released in 1998, then you may have noticed that some of the music has been changed. You may have also noticed some dialogue changes, as in one episode that now has a nonsense line (“Hold my order, terrible dresser”) replacing a quote from Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” This page will try to explain what’s happened to the music on “WKRP,” and why. Originally, nearly all the music played on the show was real rock music by real artists, both in “WKRP”‘s CBS run and in the subsequent syndicated reruns. But in the last few years, a new package of “WKRP” episodes has been distributed, and much of the music has been replaced by generic instrumental music from a music library, or by sound-alike “fake” songs. Also, some of the dialogue has been redubbed by voice impersonators, usually when the actors were speaking over the music, but sometimes to remove references to songs that have been replaced.
Why, you may ask?
The simple answer is: Money. The reason WKRP was shot on videotape (unlike the other MTM sitcoms like “Bob Newhart” and “Mary Tyler Moore,” which were on film) was that it was the only way they could afford to use a lot of real rock songs on the show. At the time, ASCAP had a different licensing arrangement for taped shows than for filmed shows; licensing the music for WKRP cost something like half of what it would have cost had it been filmed.
Well, the music licenses expired by the time the show was being prepared for re-distribution in the mid-’90s, and by then ASCAP no longer had a “discount” for videotaped shows. Also by then, the cost of licensing songs had skyrocketed across the board. So it would have been prohibitively expensive for the distributor to re-license all the songs used on the show. They certainly could have done a better job of replacing the songs they couldn’t pay for, but it was inevitable that some of the songs would be gone due to rising costs, and that’s all there is to it.
Strangely enough, sometimes music has been replaced even when it was generic music to begin with! Generic music was occasionally used on the show, mainly for fake commercials, but since the new distributors probably no longer knew exactly where some of that generic music came from (and since even stuff from a music library has to be paid for), they frequently replaced it with generic music from their own music library. This of course is not as bad as replacing real music, but I’ll note it when it happens.
Did you know that TV shows pay fees to ASCAP when they have “real” music playing in the background? Did you know those fees are limited licenses that need renewal in the future?
In other words, whenever WKRP ran a real song, they paid a fee to ASCAP. Never mind that it was incidental music, lending verismilitude to a rock music radio station. Never mind that it was essentially a free advertisement to the music played (“Hey, this song is so popular and cool that it fits on a TV show about a rock music radio station — don’t you want to buy it?”).
No, ASCAP wanted money for it. And it wanted even more money for the reruns. Once the music was incorporated in the show, you’d think that, so long as it wasn’t extracted and used in other new productions, it would be part of the show. Nope. ASCAP continues to want its pound of flesh.
Indeed, it wanted so much money, that it was actually cheaper to gut the shows, replace music and dialog with generic crap, and use that for the syndication package.
And the winners here are … uh, folks who can sell bootleg copies of the original episodes with the original music.
Way to go, guys. And definitely what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they established copyright law in the Constitution. Definitely.
(via BoingBoing)
I thought this was a hoot. Makes as much sense as the “do not call” stuff being knocked down because it violates the “free speech” rights of telemarketers. Yep, the Founding Fathers had that in mind as well.
I guess my right to enjoy dinner without useless phone calls does not count!
I suppose you heard that ASCAP wanted money for songs under copywrite that Girl Scouts sang around the campfire, too. On the honor system, of course!
Yup. And you realize that’s why restaurants never sing “Happy Birthday” but some inane local equivalent. Feh.
Someone (who I presume preferred to remain nameless) e-mailed me an interesting article that strongly disputes the whole “Happy Birthday is copyrighted material” idea (mirrored here and here. I’m not a copyright lawyer by any means, but it’s interesting-sounding stuff.