From the social post: “ The Newlywed Game is heading to BUZZR over the air and on cable starting November 15th.”
I’m wondering if this wording means they don’t have the rights to run it on the streaming feed, only OTA/cable.
I suspect you're correct based on their post today. Digital (online streaming) rights are complicated.
Indeed they are.
As it’s been explained to me in the past, this is a big part of why most networks that heavily rely on leased library titles (i.e. MeTV) don’t stream. Many of the deals for OTA & cable don’t carry over to streaming and would have to be reworked to include it. Whereas this doesn’t so much affect a network like BUZZR, where the parent company owns most of what they play outright, and the handful of shows that do have a leased component came after the fact & probably had a streaming provision written into the deal.
(This also apparently was a reason why we got the TPIR Barker Era channel even though the show for now remains embargoed on OTA/cable. Once Fremantle & CBS reached a deal, whatever red tape was keeping it off traditional TV didn’t apply to streaming. And if anyone, be it Barker’s people or whomever, tried to make an issue of it, Fremantle & CBS could rightly tell them to pound sand.)
What’s befuddling me a bit with TNG, though, is why BUZZR would bother with apparently paying to acquire it when a big chunk of their audience won’t be able to see it—especially in light of
what we’ve recently learned about the financial and viewership boon streaming has been for them. BUZZR has typically been good about making sure all their ducks were in a row on things like this (Wordplay notwithstanding). Was it that when Sony comes knocking, you don’t turn them down if you want any shot at working with them later? Or did Sony simply make them an offer they just couldn’t refuse?
