Two major topics for today: TV-on-DVD music clearances and May sweeps. And I'm not going to have time or space to get into May sweeps. Sorry for the fake-out!

TV-on-DVD music clearances are a hot topic these days due to the April 24 release of the first season of WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD. For years, WKRP was on many DVD collectors' wish lists due not only to the quality of the program but also due to the fact that it had not been seen in syndication for many years.

However, being set at a rock music station, WKRP not surprisingly used loads of contemporary music to add to the realism of the setting; WKRP couldn't have gone without rock and roll any more than MASH could have gone without war references or South Park could go without the word "fart."

Due to the fact that music licensing deals for WKRP had long since expired (and in fact had expired before its last notable syndication run in the 1990s on Nick at Nite, resulting in changes to the episodes seen then) and licensing the songs again would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at least, 20th Century Fox -- which owns WKRP -- was faced with a dilemma: Not release the episodes at all, or release the episodes with the songs replaced. From 20th Century Fox's perspective, not releasing the episodes denies WKRP the resurgence many other classic shows have enjoyed on DVD, and denies 20th Century Fox the right to profit again from the program.

So WKRP arrives on DVD this week with music changes. But this is not simply a case of replacing background music with cheaper background music: As Howard Hesseman (who played DJ Dr. Johnny Fever) commented, "the music was like a ninth character on the show." Despite robbing WKRP of its realism as a station that plays rock music and not generic rock instrumentals, much of the show's dialogue has also been cut, either because it commented directly on the now non-existent music or because the show's soundtrack didn't allow the music to be separated from the dialogue. In short, WKRP on DVD is now not the classic WKRP.

Could a better, more complete WKRP have been released? It is almost certain. While the list of TV shows that have had to have music replaced or excised on their DVD versions is long, there are examples -- Freaks and Geeks and Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season being just two -- of shows that employed tons of music, none of which was edited for DVD. But both Freaks and SNL benefited from the heavy involvement of its creators in order to get the music cleared. Here WKRP creator Hugh Wilson appears to have come up short -- when a journalist told Wilson of a specific and significant change, Wilson seemed genuinely surprised. If the creator of a program can't be bothered to get involved to ensure the best possible representation of a show, you can't expect someone in DVD authoring and production -- who maybe knows nothing of the original series -- to care. The fact that some of the episodes used in the release are not the original episodes, but the shorter syndication cuts, also speaks to 20th's and Wilson's lack of care.

With Wilson's involvement, perhaps one of two other avenues could have been taken, both of which would have been preferable to what is being released: The most likely would have been to examine each episode and determine which songs were most crucial to the plot and dialogue and to clear those. In this instance, the retail price of the set would have been greater, a price that most fans of the show would have gladly paid to get a more watchable and less jarring version of the show. This seems to have been the avenue that Shout! Factory took with my favorite show, SCTV: While some music was deleted in that set, much was not, and all of the musical guest performances (by the likes of Roy Orbison, Joe Walsh, John Mellencamp, and Hall & Oates, to name a few) were kept intact. The sets were pricey, but fans like myself were happy to get the shows mostly complete. Another option would have been the creation of an expensive WKRP: Ultimate Collector's Set, which would have retained all of most all of the music and been sold to the most diehard WKRP fans through the Internet, while the cheaper, edited version would still be sold to casual fans at ShopKos, Targets, and Sam's Clubs. Shout! Factory released a special pricey version of Freaks and Geeks on-line, and while the in-store version still contained all of the music, undoubtedly much of the rights were paid for by the extra money that was raised by selling an expensive collector's set online to the devoted F&G addict.

20th Century Fox and Hugh Wilson will defend the edited WKRP DVDs by saying that the potential sales figures precluded spending the money to clear the original music used. But with such a severely edited product being the only buying option, many casual fans like myself won't go near the set while the most stubborn WKRP diehards won't purchase it either out of principle or because they have better VHS versions at home or both. So whatever sales the set does will not reflect consumers' actual interest in an uncensored, undiluted WKRP product.

Oh, and 20th Century Fox should not be the only corporation to incur the wrath of WKRP fans: What about those companies that own the music? Do they really need to be asking for tens of thousands of dollars for a few seconds of Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" or Pink Floyd's "Dogs"? That's the most ridiculous pricing system since whoever sold the Pentagon those $900 ashtrays and $500 toilet seats.

While music licensing has wrecked havoc on the TV-on-DVD business for years, fans waiting for WKRP appear to have gotten the shaft like fans of no other series have gotten the shaft. It's the sort of injustice that would send Dr. Johnny Fever on a rampage.

Well, it looks like our friends at My Network TV are taking the programming high road as we get closer to the all-important May "sweeps" period. Take a look at these specials the network -- and by extension, My Madison TV as an affiliate of My Network TV -- have coming up:

Hawaiian Tropic International Beauty Pageant (April 24), Ujena Bikini Jam (April 24), America's Trashiest Weddings (May 1), Body Doubles International Twins Search (May 1), Hooters Dream Girl Challenge (May 8), Anna Nicole Smith: A Centerfold Revisited (May 16), and Britney Spears: A Pop Idol Exposed (May 16).

Obviously with this T&A-infested lineup, no one is going to confuse My Network TV with PBS, but as programming strategy, maybe it makes sense. There is not a program title listed above that didn't tell you exactly everything you needed to know about the show and whether you would be inclined to tune in or not. And for a struggling network trying to survive in a 500-channel, VOD, YouTube, MySpace universe, maybe Hooters and Britney Spears is the most logical way to get noticed. But it could backfire in terms of the long-term image of the station. (I know some people who still consider FOX the trashy network largely due to its beginnings, even though with all of the American Idol it runs, FOX probably carries more family-friendly programming than any other broadcast network.) But maybe My Network TV is deciding that with its intentions of steering clear of scripted programming already made public, that bikini competitions and home movies of trashy weddings are the long-term image of the network. And there are probably viewers out there to be had for these programs, and the network and advertisers aren't going to care if people who tune in feel guilty or not for watching, as long as they watch.

Speaking of feeling guilty about entertainment, Rolling Stone's Web site recently named the top 25 guilty pleasures in music as voted on by their readers. (For the record, the editors picked five: Kelly Clarkson, En Vogue, Neil Diamond, Journey, and Hall and Oates.) The list, which includes mostly veteran acts like Rush, Electric Light Orchestra, REO Speedwagon, and Styx, of course raises the question of what exactly constitutes a guilty pleasure. For me, a music guilty pleasure is an act that I would consider adding to my CD collection but ultimately couldn't handle the embarrassment that would come if someone saw it on my shelf. Nor would I be able to download the artist's music from I-Tunes for fear that my questionable music tastes would somehow be leaked all over cyberspace. My credit card number or social security number, hell, I'll post them anywhere, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my soft spot for Culture Club, England Dan & John Ford Coley, or Rick Springfield be known.

So for me, most of the artists named on the list are not guilty pleasures but simply underappreciated -- I own Hall and Oates and REO Speedwagon discs and display them at least semi-proudly, and I know perfectly sane people who enjoy Rush, Eddie Money, Foreigner, and Boston (and come on, the riff of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is completely ripped from Boston's classic More Than A Feeling). For me, the readers who voted for Poison, Bread, Air Supply, and Motley Crue had the right idea. (Hey, I heard Poison's Talk Dirty To Me on satellite radio on Saturday, and I turned it up, I'll admit.) And those who voted for Wham, Simply Red, and New Edition? Sorry, that's just bad music. (Check out the whole list here: Rolling Stone's List of the 25 Undisputed Guilty Pleasure Bands.)

Anybody else got any adds for Rolling Stone's list of music guilty pleasures? E-mail me at jrobbins@wisctv.com and I'll include them in an upcoming blog. But I'll post all choices anonymously. Wouldn't want to embarass anyone.

Anybody out there recently apply for Survivor? Anybody out there ever get turned down? Where are they getting these boring people from and what distinguishes the last few casts from the first 20 people that you might run into walking down any crowded city street at lunch time?

I would think that to get on a popular (and it is still popular, if not nearly the phenomenon it was) reality show like Survivor you would have to have had overcome some sort of personal tragedy, have a notable job that would instigate some intelligent conversations around the fire pit, or be -- at the very least and this is as politically correct a term as I can think of -- full of eccentricities. In short, I would think you'd have to be interesting!

But apparently not. Look at this season, which has been among the series' most disappointing. It's a problem when the most gripping character is a computer engineer named Yau-Man, whose most notable trait listed on his biography is that he enjoys table tennis. Hey, I play air hockey with my son, but that shouldn't be enough to land me on national TV on a weekly basis. And when will Survivor producers realize that just because someone is a bartender (this season's "Rocky"), it doesn't mean that he or she will be as watchable as Sam Malone? And if you're thinking that people are cast not for their personalities but for their looks, again, I give you Yau-Man.

But as dull as Survivor: Fiji has been, I wouldn't count the granddaddy of modern reality shows out just yet. After all, it was just last fall that Survivor: Cook Islands overcame a disastrous start (even if you bought the producers' bunk of splitting the tribes by race as a "social experiment" and not the ratings stunt it actually was, it was still creepy and unsettling) to finish as one of the series' best -- if not the best -- cycles. And four years ago, after Survivor: Thailand stunk up the airwaves (my father has a nasty case of the shingles that has more personality than that season's Robb, Ghandia, and Clay), Survivor: Amazon quickly became a modern-day classic. So I have every reason to believe that there is still life left in the show yet -- and it doesn't require producers to shoot in a wintry climate, to shoot in a city, or any of the other weird ideas I've heard. It just requires a cast of characters with some character.

A cast of characters with a lot of character populate the CBS sitcom The King of Queens, which notably airs its 200th episode this week as a prelude to ending its nine-year-run next month. The King of Queens is a show that I've championed in the past and will continue to champion as it reruns in perpetuity far longer than I plan to be alive. It has remained remarkably funny throughout its long run, amazingly never relying on maudlin storylines (a notable exception was an effective third season finale in which Leah Remini's character discovers she is pregnant and then later miscarries), flashy guest star turns, or forced character development. Significantly, The King of Queens premiered on the same night as another sitcom smash, Will & Grace, but while W&G became the most critically embraced show of the two, it also fell fast and hard to the same sitcom killers I mentioned (W&G have a baby, Karen's husband dies, every actor or musician with a significant gay following makes a distracting guest appearance).

King of Queens took the mantra of Seinfeld -- "No hugging, no learning" -- and infused it into a domestic setting with wonderful results. It has been said that Monty Python, which formed as The Beatles were disintegrating, adopted the creative spirit of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I would argue that King of Queens, which premiered the fall after Seinfeld's final episode, adopted from Seinfeld not only the tremendous comedic skills of Jerry Stiller, but also the creative spirit of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer. Certainly Kevin James's show never hit the heights of Seinfeld (either critically or commercially), but it also isn't fading away the way Seinfeld did after Larry David left following Seinfeld's seventh season. Long may the King rule in syndication. It is a sitcom classic.