On Streaming, Classic TV Shows Are Dropping the Needle Drops

Streaming services have been instrumental in cultivating new audiences for classic television series. But the original fans of the shows, driven by nostalgia to binge-rewatch their favorites, are noticing something strange: the needle drops have vanished. So they’re blowing the whistle on their shows, which, in some cases, have lost their lost their invaluable soundtracks. This thread cites Veronica Mars, Scrubs, Supernatural, Daria, and Beavis & Butthead among the series that have lost their vibe, along with their music.

Needle-drop disappearances are an issue that carried over from the pre-streaming era. Series licensed music for broadcast television without consideration for any future media. In the way-back times, the licenses sometimes only lasted six years. The idea behind this was if a network canceled a series after one or two seasons, less outlay went toward its music. If the series continued or went into syndication (which only happens after 100 episodes), they revisited the music licenses—extended them—to perpetuity.

Then there are cult favorites like Freaks and Geeks, which lasted one season, but the show’s makers cleared its wealth of music for Hulu. On the flip is Veronica Mars, also on Hulu, whose excellent music has devolved into an uneven experience with generic sounds that only hint at its original greatness.

Grammy-nominated music supervisor Gary Calamar of Go Music Services has been in the needle-drop picking game for over two decades. His stamp is on House, and Six Feet Under, among others. The network’s experience with HBO on The Sopranos informed his experience when dealing with the music from True Blood.

“We had Jace Everett’s “Bad Things” for True Blood’s theme song,” says Calamar. “I asked HBO if they wanted to clear it for six years or in perpetuity and they said, ‘In perpetuity. We learned our lesson on The Sopranos.’ I didn’t work on The Sopranos, but from what I understand, they cleared the Alabama 3 song for five years. Obviously, the show became a big hit. After five years, they had to go back to Alabama 3’s people and re-clear it. HBO was not in a great negotiating position because they knew they needed to have the song, and the price of the song was jacked up quite a bit.”

Extending licenses is not an option that shows always exercise. On streaming platforms, we hear production music, also referred to as library music, instead of the original licensed music. They create this music to “sync to picture” in film, television, and advertising. They shows license this music, created in all genres with different beats per minute, at a flat fee rate. This is a sharp contrast with music licensed from a musical artist, which can range based on the artist’s profile and how many seconds or minutes the shows use.

“I know not everybody’s listening to the music,” says Calamar, “but I definitely feel like it’s taking away from the storytelling, otherwise, it wouldn’t have mattered so much to begin with. It’s so much part of the narrative. It’s so much part of the feel of the show. To replace that with something not at that same level, not at that same value takes away from the value of the show. It just does.”

“If the studio had opted to re-clear the music and there were one or two holdouts which were replaced with production music, they clearly couldn’t afford it and that’s understandable,” says Superior Music Publishing’s Mara Kuge, who has been in the sync and licensing space for over two decades. “If everything’s replaced by production music, that means that the studio opted to not pay to re-clear the music. Or if they tried, they didn’t budget enough money to clear it properly.”

With the advent of DVD (and later Blu-ray) box sets in the early 2000s, there was a boom in “mailbox money,” with the original music’s license extending to this format. But some early series DVDs did not have proper music clearance.

The creatives involved in a production, and certainly not the music supervisors, don’t make decisions when it comes to extending a license or clearing the music for DVDs or streamers. It’s the bean counters.

“When shows get licensed to streaming platforms, the deal is not being made with the creator or the showrunner. It’s being made with the studio or production company, whoever financed the show. They never care about the music. They have another source of income, but they’re not trying to repay for the music,” says Calamar.

“All the TV watchers in the entire world maybe don’t care about the music,” says Kuge. “But 100%, or close to it of people who watch specific shows care about the music. The people making these decisions aren’t aware of how important the music is. Or they maybe they do, but they may not see the cost to benefit ratio as being important enough. It seems very short sighted. It’s not a hard concept to understand that if you license something for certain rights and you want more rights, then you have to pay more for it. Unfortunately, people don’t always see the value in intellectual property.”

The essential and undeniable power of needle drops is a 21^st century phenomenon. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, other than theme songs and the occasional heart-tugging hokey instrumental snippet, music was not part of the television-watching experience. On the musicians’ side, it was uncool to license your music, a sellout move.

There are exceptions, two of which are the songs that became the themes for The Wonder Years, Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” and the aforementioned The Sopranos, Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning.” Strangely, the streaming version of The Wonder Years doesn’t feature the Joe Cocker take on the song, whose rights holders are The Beatles, historically difficult to clear for commercial use.

It wasn’t until the 2000s with series like Friday Night Lights, The O.C., One Tree Hill, Grey’s Anatomy that music became an integral part of storytelling. Sync became “the new radio,” to quote Kuge. Even so, depending on where and how a show deploys a song, its presence, or lack thereof, may not be as noticeable. This is one area where the stakeholders might pick and choose which needle drops they will pay additional for and which ones they’ll replace. Says Calamar, “I don’t endorse that, but it is a place to save a little money.”

“People have all kinds of reasons why they don’t want to pay for music,” says Kuge. “Anywhere from they don’t appreciate the importance to they don’t understand why someone should get paid again since the song was already used back in the day. It seems like an unnecessary expense. That’s why you end up with situations where the music’s replaced, people notice and they’re upset about it.”