I mentioned in passing that Howard Hesseman and Tim Reid picked much of their own music for WKRP in Cincinnati. That tidbit came from this great, short interview with Hugh Wilson, the creator of WKRP:

[…] in fact, we actually broke some records on WKRP. It was the first time they were heard. By then, I was letting Howard pick the old kind of rock and roll, Pink Floyd stuff, and Tim was picking the Commodores and all the kind of Black rhythm and blues and all. […] But they were really picking it, and some records were heard first on WKRP.

I’d love to know which songs were first played on the show. Alas, Wilson doesn’t say.

The main thrust of the interview though is the cost of having all that great music on the show. Wilson insisted on real records, not “soundalikes,” and it cost him in syndication:

There was a meeting, a music meeting, and the idea was that when they played records at WKRP, they’d be what’s called “soundalikes.” It would sound like the Beatles, but it wouldn’t be the Beatles. And I said, then we really can’t do this show. We really must stop right here. That’s not good, we got to play real records. So, that’s going to cost money and— no, we got to do that. And so we looked into it, and actually, I could buy what was called a “needle down” where maybe, maybe I could get 17 seconds of Pink Floyd for $3,000. And if I use, like, two pops like that, that’s six grand. My cast wasn’t making a lot of money. I wasn’t either at the time, you know. […] but I was able to get these real records on. And I think it made the show.

[…] and this became a huge financial problem years later, because the show was just going great guns in syndication. […] And then, the rights to the music had to be renewed, and that $3,000 needle down now, they wanted $103,000 for it. So that was the end of WKRP syndication. But I can’t say I would have done it any other way.

This is probably the reason WKRP in Cincinnati is not available on any streaming services (except for purchase on Apple TV), and why the DVD landscape is so sparse (there’s a single boxed set on Amazon for $99 from a random (well-rated, at least) seller, or available directly from Shoutfactory—who Wilson credits in this interview for making the DVD available with most of original music intact—for $64.)

It’s a shame there’s little interest in a remastered—and musically complete—reissue of the show.