Sony Sues CBS Over ‘Jeopardy,’ ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Syndication Deals

Sony Footage Tv is suing CBS, claiming that the latter has did not dwell as much as its contract to distribute Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune in syndication.

Sony produces the 2 long-running sport reveals, that are perennially among the many most-watched syndicated applications on broadcast TV. The go well with, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom, alleges that CBS hasn’t held up its finish of a contract to distribute the 2 reveals to native TV stations in the USA and entered into unauthorized distribution offers abroad.

“As said in our criticism, CBS has been egregiously undercutting the worth and profitability of those reveals in favor of its personal self-interest,” Sony mentioned in a press release. “CBS has pocketed tens of millions in distribution charges from unauthorized offers, licensed the reveals domestically effectively under market worth, and favored its wholly-owned reveals in promoting gross sales and distribution, amongst different issues. Additional CBS has gutted the groups liable for fulfilling its contractual obligations, requiring us to step in at our personal expense. After repeated makes an attempt to resolve this matter amicably, we’re left with no alternative however to take authorized motion at this time.”

In a press release of its personal, CBS mentioned that “For greater than 40 years, CBS and its predecessor firm King World have been completed distribution companions and considerate stewards for Wheel and Jeopardy! within the syndication market. This work has helped construct reveals into franchises, remodel common collection into cultural icons and ship Sony billions of {dollars} of income. Our contract is obvious that we maintain the distribution rights to those collection in perpetuity. We strongly refute any claims by Sony that we didn’t use our greatest efforts in distributing the applications or in any other case did not abide by our obligations below the agreements. Sony’s claims are rooted within the truth they merely don’t just like the deal the events agreed to a long time in the past. We sit up for vigorously defending this lawsuit in court docket.”

Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! have every been airing in syndication for greater than 40 years, and Sony’s distribution agreements with CBS and its predecessors (CBS purchased the reveals’ authentic distributor, King World, in 1999) date again to the early Eighties as effectively. Below the deal, CBS’ syndication arm, CBS Media Ventures, licenses the reveals to native stations and sells nationwide promoting spots in change for 35 % to 40 % of receipts.

Sony claims that CBS has did not dwell as much as its contractual obligation to make its “finest efforts” to make these receipts as giant as doable. The criticism states that CBS has licensed the reveals at below-market charges and did not max out potential advert income from the 2 reveals. Sony additionally alleges that CBS entered into unauthorized distribution agreements in Australia, New Zealand and different worldwide territories that exceeded the contractual restrict of two years — and says CBS Media Ventures admitted as a lot in 2023 — however hasn’t turned over any receipts from these agreements.

Sony, which is in search of financial damages, additionally says that latest layoffs at CBS dad or mum Paramount World have adversely affected the models tasked with distributing, advertising and advert gross sales for the 2 sport reveals, additional proscribing CBS’ potential to carry up its finish of the contract.

A replica of Sony’s criticism is under.

Oct. 31, 2 p.m. Up to date with CBS assertion on the authorized motion.