Why can’t my public television station air my favorite old shows again? Why can I find a video for a program that aired many years ago?
Generally, APT is only given rights to distribute a program to stations for about 3 years. At that time, the rights revert to the producers, who may try to sell it to a commercial channel or distribute it via some other means. Unfortunately, stations are unable to broadcast even the most popular of the older programs without the rights. This also is true of videos. Video distribution is at the discretion of the producer/copyright holder. Also, if your “favorite old show” goes back to the 1970s and ’80s, most producers back then weren’t thinking about video distribution.
