Loni Anderson's Greatest Sitcom Role Is Impossible To Stream Today

Workplace sitcoms set in and around radio stations have provided us with at least four stone-cold classics of the form: "WKRP in Cincinnati," "NewsRadio," "Frasier," and "I'm Alan Partridge." They each deal with different types of radio: a struggling, medium-market AM station trying to stay afloat via a rock-and-roll format; a New York City all-news station; a Seattle talk station; and British radio, which is essentially sorcery to this American who has spent very little time in the U.K.

Two of these series are relatively easy to stream. A couple of seasons of "NewsRadio" are available on Pluto TV, while the entirety of "Frasier" awaits you on Prime Video. If you don't live in the United States, it appears that "I'm Alan Partridge" can be viewed in its entirety on Netflix. But if you're looking to watch "WKRP in Cincinnati" to pay homage to the great Loni Anderson (who died on August 3 at the age of 79), unless you've got the Shout Factory! 2014 DVD release of the full series, your options are frustratingly limited and incomplete. This is no way to treat a show that /Film deemed one of the 30 best sitcoms of all time, but this is a series that's endured multiple legal issues over the years, all of which have to do with the pop and rock music featured in the show.

I'd like to think there's an opportunity to resolve these matters in the near future, but I like to think a lot of things that ain't gonna happen in an age that is openly, increasingly hostile to human creativity.

Created by Hugh Wilson, "WKRP in Cincinnati" was a keenly observed sitcom about the inner workings of a down-and-out radio station. It's also a strange show in that, when you ask people who are only vaguely aware of the series, they are unlikely to mention series star, Gary Sandy, right off the bat. Though his character Andy Travis was the protagonist of the sitcom, he was also the straight man. The big laughs on "WKRP" were generated by its explosively talented cast, which included Howard Hesseman as just-about-burned-out DJ Dr. Johnny Fever, Gordon Jump as nepo-hired general manager Arthur Carlson, Tim Reid as silver-tongued vinyl-spinner Venus Flytrap, Richard Sanders as inept newsman Les Nessman, and, of course, Loni Anderson as the ultra-capable receptionist Jennifer Marlowe.

A big part of the show's aesthetic appeal was that Wilson insisted on using rock and pop music from its contemporary era. He shot the show on video to keep costs down so they could afford the music, and some acts credited the series with boosting their songs' popularity (when "Heart of Glass" topped Billboard's Hot 100, the band's label sent "WKRP in Cincinnati" the gold record for the album, "Parallel Lines," that featured the single). Alas, when the licensing deals for the music expired, reruns were suddenly riddled with soundalike tracks, which, for anyone who grew up watching the show when it initially aired, kinda ruined it.

Restoring all of the original music to every episode proved impossible when Shout Factory! released its DVD collection. They got as much as they could, but some songs were simply impossible (i.e., cost-prohibitive) to license. While they did a splendid job with their release, the company probably wasn't thinking about the licensing nightmares streaming was about to induce. 11 years later, physical media is on life support, so I sure hope you held on to your original DVD releases of "Freaks and Geeks," "Undeclared," and "The Wonder Years," because some of the music from those shows is never coming back.

"WKRP in Cincinnati" may be a culturally significant television series, but it was never a ratings smash, and, because it was so compromised in syndication, it failed to develop a following outside of its initial run. For now, you can pay $2 to watch individual episodes from season 1 on Apple TV, but that's a waste in our day and age, even if you've just got to relive the absurd glory of the Turkey Drop. Oh, the humanity!