The music license struggle

Play it: Freaks & Geeks (1st and only season)

Record labels have television studios over a barrell with overcharging for extending the rights from TV shows to DVD releases. One such TV show was locked in a battle to get the rights for a long time, but somehow made it work and the DVD release quickly became one of best selling DVD TV series sets. Freaks & Geeks ran into all sorts of problems getting the rights extended for the music on the show, and producer Judd Apatow fronted a lot of his own money, in the end, to get it done. (The playlist above [tracklist here] is a testament to just how hard Apatow and DVD producer Richard Williams had to work to get it done.)

This licensing issue is the main reason we'll never see a WKRP DVD set, and even now, when watching it in syndication, that's why you won't hear many of the songs that appeared in the original episodes. That's right, they've been switched in most cases to royalty-free music, and even dialogue's been changed to remove lyric and song titles.

A lot of current shows might run into these problems as well (Love Monkey, if it makes it through a season,) but many shows, like The O.C., Veronica Mars, The Gilmore Girls, etc., have been getting the rights early on and choosing songs/artists/labels that are more 'cost efficient' in the process.

Freaks & Geeks episodic music tracklisting

Adtunes' recent feature on TV-to-DVD licensing woes

tags: playlist, music, television, soundtrack, freaks and geeks, dvd, wkrp, the oc, veronica mars, gilmore girls