Hacker Cinema
WKRP in Cincinnati
1978 · TV series · 25 min episodes · 4 seasons
Created by Hugh Wilson
When a Cincinnati radio station switches from sedate music to top-40 rock 'n' roll, its staff of oddball characters is forced to switch gears quickly. New programming director Andy Travis brings in a new DJ named Venus Flytrap to work with the station's burned-out veteran, Dr. Johnny Fever. Neurotic newsman Les Nessman, eager beaver Bailey Quarters, sleazy salesman Herb Tarlek, blonde bombshell Jennifer Marlowe, who serves as the station's ultra-capable receptionist, and station manager Arthur Carlson, whose domineering mother owns WKRP, round out the eccentric bunch.
2 positive9 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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13 comments on Hacker News
Yeah thats also how I do it.
I have a cool 16 DVD/Bluray ripping rig. Even have scripts that convert ripped images into MKV's with all audio and subtitles, art, etc. Uploads into my Jellyfin.
And yes, I do buy VHS, DVDs, and Blurays. I have probably 3000 movies in physical format, and 10000 audio CDs. I also rip old VHS, which you usually cant find any torrents of. Again, I specialize in rare stuff you cant buy retail or find.
There's also illegal shows, like the old WKRP in Cincinnati. They licensed for TV only multiple songs. Pink Floyd and other artists refuse to license now. Nobody can legally sell them, even if you have the money. Piracy is the only way for the complete show.
There's also a lot more shows that languished in licening hell for decades, or theyre still unobtainable at any price. Some you can get redacted versions, but the originals are illegal no matter what. And as an (well, illegal, but I DGAF) archivist, having shows intentionally lost due to pervasive greed is just... more wrong.
The Wonder Years - finally published in 2021, LOTS of cuts made
China Beach - published in 2013 after clearing hundreds of songs. 17 segments were cut due to licensing fuckery
Northern Exposure - multiple songs redacted on republishing
Pee-wee's Playhouse - multiple songs redacted on republishing
Beavis and Butt-Head - DVD was a hackjob with dozens of songs changed/parodied.
Cold Case - too much licensed content, cant republish
Third Watch - too much licensed content, cant republish
The Drew Carey Show - massive music rights issues, cant republish
Malcolm in the Middle - massive music rights issues, cant republish
Little Monsters (1989) - massive music rights issues, cant republish
Heavy Metal (1981) - tons of rights issues, cant republish
Kids Incorporated / Class of 1999 2 - tons of rights issues, cant republish
My understanding is this is why some old TV shows aren’t streaming despite interest.
“WKRP in Cincinnati” has so much music in the episodes that the licensing costs to stream it today would be prohibitive.
> Good call!! Also people that want the original music on older TV shows.
A DVD rental service won't necessarily get you that either. For some stuff filmed before buying DVD sets was a thing, you may only be able to get the original music from a tape someone made off of TV. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKRP_in_Cincinnati#Music_licensing.
> How many films and TV-sows are now not legally available?
Or if they are, they've been changed to remove material that can't be distributed. WKRP in Cincinnati is an example of this.
From the Wikipedia page for the show:
> WKRP was videotaped rather than filmed because at the time, music-licensing fees were lower for videotaped programs, a loophole that was intended to accommodate variety shows. Music licensing deals that were cut at the time of production covered only a limited number of years, but when the show entered syndication shortly after its 1982 cancellation, most of the original music remained intact because the licensing deals were still active. After the licenses had expired, later syndicated versions of the show did not feature the music as first broadcast, with stock production music inserted in place of the original songs to avoid paying additional royalties.
WKRP in Cincinnati
From Wikipedia:
> The show's use of Blondie's "Heart of Glass" was widely credited with helping the song become a major U.S. hit, and the band's record label Chrysalis Records presented the producers with a gold record award for the song's album Parallel Lines. The gold record can be seen hanging on the wall in the "bullpen" set in many episodes.
> The songs were often tied into episode plots, and some pieces of music were even used as running gags. For example, the doorbell at Jennifer's penthouse apartment played "Fly Me to the Moon" (which was later replaced by "Beautiful Dreamer" for copyright reasons).
> Wilson has commented that WKRP was videotaped rather than filmed because at the time, music-licensing fees were lower for videotaped programs, a loophole that was intended to accommodate variety shows. Music licensing deals that were cut at the time of production covered only a limited number of years, but when the show entered syndication shortly after its 1982 cancellation, most of the original music remained intact because the licensing deals were still active. After the licenses had expired, later syndicated versions of the show did not feature the music as first broadcast, with stock production music inserted in place of the original songs to avoid paying additional royalties. In some cases (such as during scenes with dialogue over background music), some of the characters' lines were dubbed by soundalike actors, a practice evident in all prints of the show issued since the early 1990s, including those used for its late-1990s run on Nick at Nite.
> The expense of procuring licenses for the original music delayed release of a DVD set for years.[44] When a Season 1 set was finally released, much of the music was again replaced and the soundalike vocal dubs were present. Some scenes were shortened or cut entirely, but some deleted scenes that had not been included in the original broadcast were added.
Some of the best music ever committed to a TV series was on that show. Musically, it's the 50s' WKRP In Cincinnati.
I was surprised to see WKRP in Cincinnati in the TV listings. It was my understanding that all the old music in those shows made them impossible to broadcast anymore, because (1) the copyright owners wanted too much money, and (2) for some of the music, it was impossible to find the owners.
Maybe they got past that, at least for some of the episodes.
>there will be performers and musicians and other contributors who may have various rights that need to be identified and negotiated before a legitimate streaming site can air it.
For example, there are pretty well-known TV series like Northern Exposure and WKRP in Cincinnati that are only available in essentially bowdlerized form because the music that was such a key part of the shows was never licensed beyond original TV use.
I don't know how you can make progress on this problem without addressing how people involved in creative projects get paid.
Do you make it illegal for geographic regions to be part of a contract? When you license a piece of music for a project, does the musician get paid the same for an internal corporate training video as they would for a national TV commercial campaign or for a global Disney film?
One of my favorite TV shows from my childhood is WKRP in Cincinnati. That show was set in a radio station and so there was a lot of music in it. As I understand it, that music was licensed for broadcast TV and so if you buy a DVD set or if a streamer licenses it, they swap out the music because the home video and streaming rights were never secured.
Geoblocking feels like the same kind of problem. Things destined for a smaller audience pay less for licensing.
I feel like this is not true in regards to older material. Shows like wkrp in Cincinnati can never be made available with all of the music liceasing issues. Some classic shows like soap get censored. Some shows just go missing. Most never make it to streaming and many aren't available for purchasing.
Piracy is just as important. The reason why more don't is because it is easier to just pay and perhaps the content is not worth the effort anymore. People watch movies on fast forward now, play games on phones while watching and generally tv or movie viewing as a background activity.
I think I get what the OP meant, or at least I have my interpretation of it.
I used to be fairly blasé about pirating software, justifying it with the belief that the prices were just too high. I came to believe that was really a pretty weak justification. I went through a somewhat similar change of belief later when it came to video; it's easy to talk yourself into the belief that copying TV shows and movies for free is somehow a strike against big corporations, but unless you're up for entirely reinventing the way our economy works, at the end of the day somebody really does have to pay for those shows and movies to be created, and pirating them is essentially declaring "I want to enjoy this work, I just want somebody else to pay for me doing so."
But:
There are cases where you might want to give your money to a creator or publisher and you literally can't. Up until a few years ago, no amount of money would have been able to get you the whole series of WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD, especially with the original music, for instance. The soundtrack for The Last Unicorn was never released on CD anywhere but Germany, as far as I can tell, and it's become a rare, expensive collector's item. There are hundreds of TV shows like this, thousands of movies, thousands of records, thousands of novels, thousands of programs -- and I'm probably vastly underestimating each of those categories. Their analog releases, if they were ever made, are long out of print and they were never officially released digitally.
And, I'll admit, in those cases I'm perfectly okay with piracy. The rights holder either can't or won't release it, and you can't get it legally. One can argue in such a case you'd have a moral obligation to buy an official release if and when it's made, perhaps, but that may never happen.
If what
There are a few TV series where music played a significant role that, on DVD, much of that has been stripped out because of music rights. You basically can't get the shows as aired. Norther Exposure, and (I've been told) WKRP in Cincinnati come to mind.
All I could think of was Les Nessman from the old television show WKRP in Cincinnati:
"Les believes that as the news director, he should have his own private office, so he puts masking tape on the floor around his desk indicating where his office walls would be. He insists that anyone who approaches his desk must knock at an imaginary door and wait for permission to come in. He mimes opening and closing a door whenever he sits down at or leaves his desk; once he even took out a set of keys to lock the nonexistent door."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nessman