WKRP In Cincinnati and other MTM Shows

Now that Fox is slowly but surely getting around to season-by-season DVD sets of some shows, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind people that Fox owns all the shows produced by the great MTM productions (WKRP, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, St. Elsewhere, Hill St. Blues), and that it might do some good to write to them asking for comprehensive season-by-season DVD sets of those great shows. I've written to:

20th Century Fox Home Video
P.O. Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900

...and I encourage others to do the same.

I particularly want "WKRP" because a) It's one of my favorite shows and b) Most of its episodes have never been available on video; even Columbia House never carried it. Maybe Fox will never get around to this, but the more people who write to the above address, the better chance there is.

Laurie L (the resident DVD guru on this site) mentioned in a previous thread that WKRP DVDs were in pre-production right now.

> Laurie L (the resident DVD guru on this site) mentioned in > a previous thread that WKRP DVDs were in pre-production
> right now.

I did see that, but it's been my experience that when a studio prepares something for release it's no guarantee that they'll ever release it. Some letters might help, and they couldn't hurt. My feeling is, in general, that if I hear news that something I want is in pre-pro, that's a reason to write more, not less.

And, of course, it's also important to write and let Fox now that a) There's demand for the other great MTM shows on DVD, and b) Complete season-by-season releases are far preferable to so-called "best of" collections (who can really agree on what the "best" episodes are anyway?).

By the way, here's a list of the major shows from MTM, all of which Fox now owns and could presumably release on DVD if they wanted to:

WKRP In Cincinnati
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Lou Grant
Rhoda
The Bob Newhart Show
Newhart
Hill Street Blues
The White Shadow
Remington Steele
St. Elsewhere

I should also note that being in pre-production doesn't mean that it's been decided that it will come out on DVD; it just means they're considering it. In the words of Laurie L., pre-production means "studios are testing consumers to see if they want the series and what features, if any, will be included." So the studio could just as easily drop the idea if they decide there's not enough demand...and in the case of "WKRP," I intend to do everything I can to let Fox know that there is demand out there and that they should go ahead and release the series.

Hi jaime. Sorry I didn't get to your email yet. Quite hectic over here lately.

Anyway, WKRP is in pre-pro at the current time. Fox would not give me an update on the series but I'll get to that here in a sec. Columbia House will probably never carry WKRP in any format because they no longer have the rights to distribute Fox titles. I'm also aware that they lost United Artists too which is why they recently lost Remington Steele and St. Elsewhere. These two series were owned by Orion which was obsorbed by UA (UA is a division of MGM).

Hill Street Blues is distributed by Warner Brothers, but is not in talks for DVD at this time.

The rest of the series you mentioned are owned by Fox and CBS/Viacom and distributed by WB. I've heard that Mary may be coming to DVD as well as The Bob Newhart Show, but I haven't gotten confirmation.

Fox is aware that WKRP is in high demand nationwide. At this point I believe that the major hold up is contract stipulations regarding syndication rights and royalty dues, both of which are still contracted to undisclosed outside parties.

By the way, I wouldn't recommend using the address you noted here. That address is generalized for all incoming mail sent to Fox. Here are a couple that might help better.

CBS/MTM Studios
ATTN: Series Marketing
4024 Radford Ave
Studio City, CA 91604

20th Century Fox
ATTN: TV/Videos
10201 W Pico Blvd
Century City, Ca 90067

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Thanks very much for the info, Laurie, and for the more specific address. (I didn't much like the P.O. box, but it was the only address I could find.)

Now I can put this issue on the back-burner for awhile (aside from letter-writing), and obsess about other things.