September 17, 2016

Did the Prince estate censor "Jeopardy!"?

I saw this on Twitter yesterday:



And I have my DVR set up to watch the series "Jeopardy!" and it regularly records the day's episode. But when we went to watch the episode that recorded yesterday, it was a rerun of an old episode. Did the Prince estate threaten to sue?

13 comments:

MisterBuddwing said...

Saw it in my TV market.

Given that the late Prince was a public figure, what grounds would there be to sue? (I speak as a layman.)

AFChiling said...

My recording shows last nights with Siddharth as the returning champion. Single Jeopardy was the board the Gif shows. Maybe it's something in WI. I'm in GA.

MAJMike said...

First World problem. Meh.

Ann Althouse said...

We remembered Siddharth from Thursday and he was not on the panel on Friday. There were 3 old contestants and we remembered the episode from earlier in the year, including Trebek's introduction celebrating the birthday of an old lady and choking up and the particular categories and questions that were turning up. There's no question that in our market we were deprived of the new episode.

David Begley said...

Prince's estate doesn't own the color purple or facts in the public arena about him.

Probably a scheduling screw-up.

Ann Althouse said...

"Given that the late Prince was a public figure, what grounds would there be to sue?"

You mean what grounds would there be to threaten to sue? I don't know if clips of songs/videos were shown in the clues, but it might have been copyright infringement. And there are tort claims about the right of publicity.

"Jeopardy!" was actively marketing that episode on Twitter using Prince's popularity to boost their own commercial enterprise. I actually think that's a pretty good claim. But wouldn't they have tried to get permission? I'd like to know the whole story.

Anonymous said...

Call the local station and ask what happened. With Jeopardy being syndicated, the local station already determines what time of day the show airs (here it is 7:30PM, but in NYC it is shown at 7:00PM), they probably also are the ones who picked the episode to air yesterday. Maybe they goofed or maybe they opted not to show the Prince episode.

Ann Althouse said...

The DVR records the series as it is received in the normal way. They're not randomly inserting reruns. It's a national show, and the time slot here is always the same: 4:30. Nothing strange like this has happened before. Suddenly, it happens on the Prince day.

Roger Sweeny said...

Weird Al Yankovic asks permission of the original artists for every song he parodies. He has only been refused once--by Prince.

rehajm said...

It is possible your local station chose not to air the episode. Jeopardy! is a 'first run' syndication program and perhaps under their broadcast arrangement the local station has discretion not to air. We used to live where the local CBS affiliate chose to use their discretion and sometimes chose not to air network programming, like golf, and show old movies instead. Used to piss me off to no end...

Unknown said...

Fred Vaughn, Madison-area champion from last season, reported that NBC 15 Madison accidentally played the weekend rerun.

Nothing nefarious at all, just a screwup.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks, Andy. I remember Fred.

Hugh Dudgeon said...

My free Pandora Prince channel hasn't played a Prince song since he died