Probably never. The first season didn't sell well enough mostly because they botched up the publics interest in having all the original music left intact. Keeping all the music was too expensive so I suspect they aren't going to bother.
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I didn't buy the DVD because of the music issue, but according to this http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2007/03/wkrp-dvd-not-ok.html it was insane how much stuff had to be cut or replaced. Even the tune from Jennifers doorbell had to be changed to something generic.
Surely common sense has to play a role in these licensing rights. I could understand a $10,000+ charge if a show was airing footage of a singer singing an entire song, but it should be lower when it's just a 10 second snippet from a song playing in the background.
Some shows like SCTV and Freaks and Geeks paid to have all the original music included. Their sets did have a higher retail than most shows, but I still bought them. I don't know if they sold enough to turn a profit though.
The big difference for something like Freaks and Geeks is that they weren't produced until after home video sales had already become a significant market. Therefore, the TV producers getting the rights to re-distribute the music as part of home video release is included in the original contracts for the rights to use the music in the show.
Back when WKRP was being made, nobody thought to address anything about home video. The contracts only covered broadcast rights, not resale rights.
I've read that online in a few places that Freaks+Geeks already had the rights to re-distribute the music when it first aired, but I don't know if it's accurate.
In the booklet that came with the DVD, executive producer Judd Apatow wrote "In order to release this package we had to ask every artist's permission to use their music again, negotiate a price and then find a video distributor who was willing to pay that price."
I'm not sure what to believe because I've heard both versions of that.
I guess with WKRP that I wish they could've tried to find a middleground. Maybe buy the rights for songs that were essential to the episode, but let the other ones go. Some of the songs had to be there. It would be preferable to have them all, but who's going to pay $200 for a Season 1 DVD?
just poor sales i am sure that most people don't remember or ever care what the songs were during first run/airing.
repeat to yourself it's just a show you should really just relax.
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Bump. Any news about new season coming out on DVD?
I definitely liked the shows with their original music, still I bought the first season and would like to see the other seasons released.
I would have bought it if not for the music problem.
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On May 8, 2014 it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series and planned on releasing a complete series set. According to Tim Reid, this DVD set would include most if not all of the original music. On July 8, 2014 it was announced that the complete series set would be released initially via shoutfactory.com on September 23, 2014 followed by a wide release on October 28, 2014.
As the release date approached initial reports indicating the series would be completely restored were found to be false. Due to a growing volume of consumer concerns regarding the level of completeness, Shout Factory announced on September 15, 2014 that rights had been obtained for 111 of the original musical artists with a disclaimer adding that "in a few cases, it was simply impossible to get the rights." Consumer requests to publish a list of included and excluded music were initially ignored by Shout Factory, but lists of the original music posted by fans indicate an 80% success rate at obtaining the original music rights.