No explanation and nothing reasonable comes to mind as to why the show isn't seen in reruns. It can't be because the current show is running concurrently. That's immediately busted as Family Feud is rerun all the time across numerous channels. Wheel of Fortune is rerun on GSN currently. Buzzr and GSN air and have aired Let's Make A Deal. Even Jeopardy! has daytime reruns on some affiliates.
Syndication is a different ball game than network programming. Fremantle can profit from individual stations that can monetize on running the program, and no distributor is going to sacrifice sales that can be had. As far as the current version of Family Feud is concerned, the program is such passive viewing (you can join at any point and not be lost on the proceedings), it's an easy draw for an audience (to say nothing of the philosophy of programming that nowadays tries to catch people for as long as they can without necessarily putting out a great product). The ratings success it has somehow managed to have in its current form helps the rerun (abuse) case a lot.
For Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, the reruns that are out there are not very old programs (to say nothing of the argument of those programs' declining production values). Again, they have a passive quality that they can draw viewers in at any point and keep them until the end of the show. I would also be inclined to believe their relative lack of rerun airings, compared to Family Feud, is a testament to the stronger production values, relatively speaking; that they still see enough value in the product they put out that they don't want to run it into the ground, or worse, lose the paying stations for first-run shows because the audience has lost interest. Fremantle seems very content to just blast Family Feud onto the airwaves wherever it can, and I would daresay even they would admit the quality of their product is not as great as the show was yesteryear. The passiveness and turnover of its audience is enough to negate any concerns about viewers falling out of interest in a overexposed, mediocrely-produced program.
While Let's Make a Deal doesn't fall into that category as a network show, the fact is CBS has a very strong, vested interest in the program as the sole broadcaster. I don't know much on the ins-and-outs of network programming, but I would daresay if CBS was concerned Let's Make a Deal reruns of the former versions on a speciality channel and a digital subchannel were a real threat to the audience of their program, they'd put their foot down and stop Fremantle from letting others run the show.
I'd really like to hope Bob isn't petty enough to deny fans an opportunity to enjoy an all-time great and relive their childhood because of a vendetta against a person or persons who didn't even ruin his career or revered status as an American institution.
Grudges are terribly petty things.
It'd be such a disservice to no only those fans and himself, as he'd be costing himself some pretty great publicity more than likely.
I think he's been getting plenty of great publicity without it, especially since Fremantle seems to want to keep on good terms with him. They wouldn't want a repeat of hurt feelings when they didn't invite him to the 40th season kickoff a few years back.
So.... Fremantle is OK with fans uploading old episodes and gladly monitizes them for revenue. Is Barker OK with this, or does he even have a say as to how old episodes are treated on the internet vs television?
I first of all--and anybody who knows better, correct me if I'm wrong--believe Bob's "control" over reruns or the lack thereof is nothing more than a "gentleman's agreement" between Fremantle and him. Despite what allusions Bob may have made in the press since his retirement, I doubt he has an ownership interest in the show at all (though I would not be surprised if he still receives a royalty or something, perhaps for the games he created or just because he was smart enough to negotiate some kind of post-retirement payroll).
So given how not-tech-savvy Barker is, and how the Internet landscape has changed dramatically in the decade since he retired, I doubt if he ever thought much about Internet streaming of old shows or thinks about it much now, if at all.
As far as Fremantle is concerned, silence is golden for them, and since they do none of the work of letting fans upload copies of old episodes and reap a profit off of them, why wouldn't they allow it? Again, it generates some of that social media frenzy I know the suits are concerned about.
there doesn't seem to be any issue with allowing old episodes to freely circulate. It makes zero sense for there still to be a holdout with allowing them to air on television.
Again, I think it largely boils down to Fremantle wanting to stay on good terms with Barker, and the fact that if they did want to put the show out in reruns of old episodes, there are a lot of costs that have to be incurred (digitizing tapes, sales contracts, etc.). While Buzzr would seem to be their natural avenue, in two and a half years, their distribution is still very limited, so I doubt the cost for reruns of one specific show (even if it is their best product) would generate sufficient profit. The fact that their episode pool for the shows they air is still as limited as it is after two and a half years is further testament to this.
