Knots Is Streaming in the US at Last!
- Thread starter ChrisSumner
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Through one of our website editors who's been in touch with the lady responsible for double-checking that the rights are cleared.
By the way, at falconcrest.org, we've shared decades of working with various departments at Warner Bros., and — since you do not seem to be familiar with my name — I was the one who had the pleasure to work with Warner Bros. for the DVD release of "Falcon Crest". I was invited to their corporate archive to sort publicity materials and single out previously unused stills for the use in the DVD artwork. One of the people at WB I worked with was later in charge of WB's Facebook page for "Falcon Crest", which they created to promote the DVDs, and lots of the photos I chose were finally released there and on our website for the first time.
I'm not entirely sure if the length of the episodes is correctly listed. But let's hope they will use the original version and not the syndication prints.
That the actors and producers never received royalties is not true at all. They have been received royalties per episode for every international broadcast and every rebroadcast, just as it said in their contracts. Royalties from U.S. airings were low though because the only rerun was on SoapNet 20+ years ago.
Filerman was a very greedy guy, so it's no surprise that he didn't want to do an audio commentary for free. It sound absurd, considering he was paid $ 25,000 per episode up front in the early years (which later increased significantly) plus a percentage later once the show made profits. So it's rather obscene that he refused to do an audio commentary, particularly considering how much else he earned from Lorimar for not even working — just one widely known example is that he received $ 25,000 per episode of "Falcon Crest" between episode 13 and episode 183 although he had executive producing duties in name only during that time, but never actually worked on these episodes. It's an open secret that Lorimar had to take him off the show's staff because he was so incredibly rude and disrespectful to sweet show creator Earl Hamner. I knew Filerman personally (as well as most of the other producers and writers of "Falcon Crest"), and I do appreciate that he did a good job on "Knots", but his mood swings, his attitude and his arrogance were just unbearable. I've never met Michele Lee, but if it's true that she refused helping promote the DVD release out of solidarity for Filerman, it sounds like bad judgment and a huge disappointment.
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I’m baffled as to why someone relied on an email from Plex “legal” (if that e-mail exists) and then spread that around without applying some logic.
As I said, Plex has no involvement with what WBD decides to put on its FAST channels. If there are rights issues then WBD won’t be able to stream the shows affected until such time the issues are resolved.
As @TJP said, there never were issues with the music rights (and due to his relationship with WBD he will know more than any of us) and that makes perfect sense because mainly seasons 3-5 would have been affected (tracks could not easily be swapped out for something royalty free) but the actual number of tracks isn’t huge. So it should only ever been a question of whether WB deemed it worthwhile to pay for streaming or DVD rights for those tracks. Music used in later seasons (e.g. when Danny runs over Pat) is easily swappable.
As for royalty fees to actors, I don’t know how true that is as Lee, Mills and Van Ark always talk about how they don’t understand that the show isn’t available for streaming in interviews and even on social media.
For the syndication re-runs and all international airings they definitely received what was due to them as that would have been covered in their contracts. The season 1&2 DVDs would not have been able to be released without sorting royalties unless home media was already covered in old contracts.
Filerman may well have been disgruntled about not being able to renegotiate for DVDs (which makes home media clauses in original contracts more likely) but as we know Shackelford and Van Ark had no issue providing commentary for the pilot.
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Exactly. What you say about the original contracts is completely correct. We have some of the original contracts of executive producers, writers and many cast members of "Falcon Crest" in our archives.
Since Lorimar used basically the same template for all their shows (with slight alterations like a wardrobe clause for Jane Wyman for instance, which made it possible for her to take home any costumes she liked), we can assume that the "Knots Landing" cast, staff and crew had basically the same contracts. These contracts included residuals for "ALL reuses including but not limited to domestic syndication, foreign telecasting, theatrical exhibition, supplemental market uses,..." — the expressions "ALL" and "not limited to" give evidence that the studio was completely free in the reuse of the show, which included home video, of course; the list of other uses under the "not limited to..." phrase was just exemplary, which is why the whole contracts were open to new technologies, hence the way of later releases didn't matter: Whether Lorimar or Warner Bros., as Lorimar's successor-in-interest, released the show on VHS tapes or DVDs (or now via streaming), the cast and crew are entitled to their royalties in any case. So yes, home media was already covered in the original contracts, just as you guessed.
And Filerman was certainly disgruntled. I acknowledge that doing an audio commentary for an episode is a lot of work (unless someone has written it for you) because you can't just sit there and begin to talk whatever comes to mind (although most audio commentaries seem to suggest that they are spontaneous gatherings of a few cast members). In reality, they are written like a script — just like the "Knots Landing Block Party" was written, by the way. So I do understand why he may have felt they should pay him, but considering that better sales of the DVDs would have been the ideal way to get more seasons released (which would have meant more royalties for everyone involved in the original production) demonstrates once more how egotistic and how "just for the moment" his behavior was.
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I didn't expect this streaming to start so soon so I recently bought the first two seasons of Knots on DVD to start my re-watch (in non YouTube quality). I just listened to the commentary for episode six and I agree with you that it is a lot of work. You could tell that Joan Van Ark in particular had already re-watched and studied the episode and as a result she was able to provide such great insight into the episode. I typically skip commentaries because they seem so thrown together, but this one was really well done and made me wish we had them for all the seasons.
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Plex, Freevee, Amazon, WBTV, WBfast - it all seems very labyrinthine to me.
How does everyone keep up with all those obscure sub-channels and sub-streamers? Not that any of it will become available over here so I guess I don't have to worry about it.
How does everyone keep up with all those obscure sub-channels and sub-streamers? Not that any of it will become available over here so I guess I don't have to worry about it.
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An interesting thing happened today: the fast channel you mentioned before (WB Hit Sitcoms showing a GP marathon on Freevee) is not on PLEX (nor is WB Nip Tuck Fast Ch that is also on Freevee), BUT as of today GROWING PAINS and NIP TUCK are ON DEMAND on PLEX. Knots Landing next, please!
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It’s quite easy really
Warner Bros. Discovery has a suite of around 15 FAST channels which are filled with shows from its archive. “Primetime Soaps by WB” was launched about 5 days ago and is currently showing non-stop Falcon Crest which will be replaced by non-stop Knots Landing once it finishes next week.
The WBD suite of FAST channels is on offer to streaming services via an advertising split model. Some streaming services (Freevee US and Plex) take all channels, others are more selective (Tubi US) which is why, as it currently stands, the Prime Time Soap channel is only available on Freevee and Plex.
In other countries some WBD FAST channels are also available via streamers but it depends on whether WBD owns the rights to its own content or whether someone else does. As far as I’m aware, the rights to Knots Landing are not currently owned by anyone in most countries. However, Falcon Crest (and other shows potentially showing up on the Prime Time Soap channel) complicates things.
Separately, WBD is offering the rights to many of its shows (Dallas, FC and now Knots among others) to streamers for on-demand use but this doesn’t affect it’s own rights for use on the FAST channel.
So in summary, whether Knots becomes available in your country depends on whether any streamer would be interested in the Prime Time Soaps FAST channel and/or if anyone would be interested in adding Knots to their on demand catalogue.
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Yep very much possible due to ad-hoc negotiations. See my explanation about the rights to @Willie Oleson above.
Plex may well look at how many people watch a specific FAST channel and if the figures look good they then acquire the on-demand rights for the shows shown on the channel (and likely drop the channel, although that isn’t completely sensible as keeping the channel would still attract those who just like to dip in and out).
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To find this channel on Freevee, I had to literally type "Primetime Soaps by WB" into the search engine. Even though it obviously is on Freevee now, when I typed in "Falcon Crest" it re-directed me to "CHiPs" reruns!
I guess the fact that it's just been added means they don't have it in their search engine yet.
I guess the fact that it's just been added means they don't have it in their search engine yet.
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If you're an American.
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Oh give it time.... It should find it's way to the rest of us soon enough.
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I've been binging Falcon Crest and these episodes are about 45-50 minutes. If ep.1 starts at the top of the hour, ep. 2 starts about :50 past, and ep. 3, at roughly :40 past, etc. Not sure if this will be the way they air KL....in my experience with rival PlutoTV's model, they started with minimal commercials this way, but as they added viewers, the commercial breaks got longer and more frequent.
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"Keep your fingers crossed and positive thoughts! I’m now hearing we will get all 14 seasons with back to back streaming episodes on Primetime Soaps by WBtv via Plex and Freevee. WB owns the series. If WB can pull this off to stream in its entirety, perhaps they will consider physical media and/or making the series available for purchase on iTunes. Let’s see!" From the same guy who received that “official” e-mail about unsolved music rights two days ago. I left the group.
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I think it's obvious that WB is doing this in some sort of hope to drum up interest for others to pick these shows up on demand. It's basically promotion while also getting some small ad revenue from it. Plus, from what I can gather the Beverly Hills 90210 channel on Pluto is doing quite well for a small streamer, so I'm sure that's an incentive.