Why dosen't Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release WoF on

I'd buy them!

As much as I like the idea of Sony releasing a Wheel DVD set with classic episodes, clips, and extras, it won't happen, because of the following:

• Music rights - given how the music beds composed by Merv Griffin and Steve Kaplan were edited out in classic clips that were shown during Season 30, SPHE might not be wanting to license the music used in classic episodes unless said shows were edited to remove those tracks.
• They really don't want us to know how "tired" and "dated" Wheel was years ago, as compared to now. For this reason, I can't see any prospective DVD release including anything from before the end of Season 12, when Harry Friedman took over as producer.

CU's post hit the nails, yeah.

It really does feel like music royalties (to Merv and Kaplan, particularly) are the big issue with even putting repeats of mid-1980s to mid-2000s shows on GSN - it's not that they won't do well, but that they won't do well enough. If Sony's not willing to pay for a few seconds of Merv and/or Kaplan's music (see Otter's post), they're not gonna pay for episodes full of their music.

As far as I'm aware of, no game show has ever had a complete season or series released onto DVD, although TPIR has a reasonable "best of" set that for the Barker era that includes his first and last weeks as host. Dark Shadows remains the only notable daytime program to have virtually all of its episodes released onto video. That said, it keeps tape trading attractive as the current circulation of episodes, along with new ones that get discovered becomes a viable hobby for those that really want to see classic Wheel, other game shows, and even other obscure TV programming like short-lived and locally aired shows. But I wouldn't mind if Sony had some sort of tiered plan where one option gets you a small amount of episodes for a small monthly fee, while higher fees allow you to browse more, up to my imaginary "ultimate" plan that allows for unlimited Wheel/J! streaming. Unfortunately, it looks like that the demand just won't be strong enough to justify, since vintage game shows have a small (albeit very devoted like myself) niche audience. I'm just good with keeping the trade circuit open, and that includes myself who currently is in the process of adding numerous Jeopardy! episodes from the mid-90s to mid-2000s.