I've conducted a fruitless search for the first edition of the VMAs online where all the streaming sites that seem to have it don't.

That got me to wondering, how come award shows don't receive proper home media releases? For music enthusiasts, being able to watch all editions of the Grammys, the AMA's and in my case, the VMA's would be a nice treat. Though I prefer home media releases, even having them available to watch in full online in decent quality would be a nice consolation.

I am aware that there are some clips available of these shows strewn about online but that's not enough for those of us who wish to see these shows as they originally aired. Any idea why after all these years we still don't have a Grammy/ AMA collection or a VMA boxset?

Now that u mention it, the only one I've ever seen was Motown 25

MotownSubdivision said:

I've conducted a fruitless search for the first edition of the VMAs online where all the streaming sites that seem to have it don't.

That got me to wondering, how come award shows don't receive proper home media releases? For music enthusiasts, being able to watch all editions of the Grammys, the AMA's and in my case, the VMA's would be a nice treat. Though I prefer home media releases, even having them available to watch in full online in decent quality would be a nice consolation.

I am aware that there are some clips available of these shows strewn about online but that's not enough for those of us who wish to see these shows as they originally aired. Any idea why after all these years we still don't have a Grammy/ AMA collection or a VMA boxset?

Totally agree, though personally I wouldn't want to watch the whole award show as aired. Having watched a number of Prince's award show performances on bad quality YouTube feeds in the last few weeks I would love to see an anthology of these performances released to DVD. I am sure fans of other artists would appreciate the same but after the original airing they seem to just disappear.

marksinclair said:

Graycap23 said:

MotownSubdivision said:

marksinclair said:

Totally agree, though personally I wouldn't want to watch the whole award show as aired. Having watched a number of Prince's award show performances on bad quality YouTube feeds in the last few weeks I would love to see an anthology of these performances released to DVD. I am sure fans of other artists would appreciate the same but after the original airing they seem to just disappear.

Why not as they originally aired?

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I think the moment has passed once it has happened in a way. The awards speeches, guest hosts awkward chat/jokes etc time out after they have played it once in my opinion. Some live performances can be great though, and sometime preferable to watching a recording of a full live show as it is set up to be televised for a large audience and showcase an act quickly and with one off production details that are never duplicated.

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For example, really enjoyed watching the Earth Wind and Fire 2002 BET Awards tribute and performance the other day and would be cool to have a collection of these type clips available in better quality

[Edited 6/7/16 8:23am]

marksinclair said:

Years ago Dick Clark said there's more money in licensing clips than selling entire shows to home video, plus he only had the broadcast rights. That's why when Saturday Night Live showed the Prince tribute, they wouldn't be able to show it anywhere else except NBC. If they were going to put it out on home video, they'd have to get permission from the estate and work details out. I don't know if it was even on Hulu or their official website.

With so many people involved in these type of shows..............I can't imagine how on Earth they would manage to sort out who gets paid.

dalsh327 said:

Years ago Dick Clark said there's more money in licensing clips than selling entire shows to home video, plus he only had the broadcast rights. That's why when Saturday Night Live showed the Prince tribute, they wouldn't be able to show it anywhere else except NBC. If they were going to put it out on home video, they'd have to get permission from the estate and work details out. I don't know if it was even on Hulu or their official website.

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if it's easy for them to rebroadcast (as per the Prince SNL tribute) it's a shame it doesn't happen more regularly. there must be a lot of archive stuff locked away which the networks could replay every now and then in some kind of format. in the UK bbc4 is rerunning top of the pops episodes from the 70s/80s in full and in order so sure it could be done with other shows

dalsh327 said:

My guess is it has to do with resolving all of the music publishing issues, as well as the various rights of publicity of the performers. When you watch episodes of Chappelle's Show and SNL on streaming services, or on DVD/Blu-ray sets, the musical performances (good and bad) are mostly omitted.

Copyright nightmare most likely. Not worth the hassle. And who would really buy full award shows?

As I understand it, most of the contracts for award shows are written such that the production company only has broadcast rights to the performance, not release rights.

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This leaves the master tape in a catch-22. The artist can't simply release it because the network or production company owns part of the rights; and the company can't release it to home video without signing a whole new contract with every artist.

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This is also why benefit/ charity albums often don't get reissued. The artists often sign contracts with limited release rights, usually for a limited time period, with the idea being that money from the record sales will support the charity. That way the artist can do something nice without having to worry that the charitable releases are competing too much with their own records. But sometimes that happens, like Shout Factory making home video of Live Aid and the Amnesty International shows from the 80s available a few years ago.

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But as the years go by, there may be a way for that to get worked out. I agree it would be nice to have a video compilation of Prince's best TV appearances in one place, or like "best soul performances in the history of the Grammys".

I wonder the same.

thetimefan said:

Has to be music publishing rights, all the record labels, artists, songwriters etc would all have to agree and a royalty is paid on all copies of the DVD/Blu Ray so it wouldn't be cost effective.

Some old sitcoms & dramas had music in them by popular acts, but when released on home video, the songs were replaced because they were asking for too much money. Even at the original broadcast, some shows used re-recordings by session singers as this was cheaper than using the original songs, like Knight Rider. The Frank Sinatra theme song for Married... With Children was replaced on the DVD, but is still on the TV reruns. There's also the case that in general, music on home video has never been a huge seller like a popular movie or video game. That's why most music related VHS/DVD go out of print after awhile. The audience is more limited. Not enough sales to make the expense of trying to get the music and image rights worth pursuing. If they decide to restore the footage, then that's another expense and restoring film/video is a slow process. There's few music & variety TV shows that have been released in entirety like regular TV shows have. There's been stuff like The Best Of Donny & Marie, and compilations of Midnight Special, Shindig, Old Grey Whistle Test, & Soul Train released, mostly with footage of really popular acts or big hit songs. The only ones I've seen with all episodes in full are lesser known programs that didn't have many episodes like Jazz Casual & The!!!Beat.

MotownSubdivision said:

dalsh327 said:

Years ago Dick Clark said there's more money in licensing clips than selling entire shows to home video, plus he only had the broadcast rights. That's why when Saturday Night Live showed the Prince tribute, they wouldn't be able to show it anywhere else except NBC. If they were going to put it out on home video, they'd have to get permission from the estate and work details out. I don't know if it was even on Hulu or their official website.

Interesting (and not in a good way), I wonder why that is?

I know they released Midnight Special on DVD but I don't think Prince's clip was included.

PatrickS77 said:

Copyright nightmare most likely. Not worth the hassle. And who would really buy full award shows?

That, and the FIRST thing many of the performing Artists would say is "Cut my performance from the package becuz the house band did not do me justice or the Cameras caught me at all the wrong angles.."....It would be a nightmare and the Production Company producing the Award show would end up with less than 5-min of a 3hr show....People don't even know the nightmares that go on behind the scenes at Award shows......Only "Specials" like "Live Aid" or "Motown" should be considered for DVD release......

MotownSubdivision said:

My guess is UCLA wound up with donated footage.

BBC is government run so they go by a different set of rules, there's a lot of footage that they've said has been lost, but take into account how many territories England used to control, there has to be multiple copies of some shows and special events.