Taking "Diff'rent Strokes" off of BET after only a few months!! Why?!?!?! To make room for a bunch of crappy newer shows?!?!?!
Forgive me, but Steve Harvey can only dream to have half of Gary Coleman's comedic timing and talent!!!
And they choose to air a bunch of stupid "reality" programs which I find offensive to fill in the cracks!!!
Maybe if TV Land wasn't so busy showing crappy reality programs one second, then a bunch of "Andy Griffith" episodes mixed in with "Bonanza", "The Munsters" and "Home Improvement" the next, they might finally wize up and start showing "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" back-to-back!!
Not to mention Sony are a bunch of no-brain idiots for ignoring the rest of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "Facts of Life" so they can put out the entire "Seinfeld" (or as I prefer to call it "*****felt"!!!) collection, or dole out all these "Friends" collection assuming that we would much rather stare at Jennifer Aniston's a$$ or watch Courtney Cox and Mathew Perry get it on rather than classic quality programming, not to mention the fact that "Sex and the City" (or as I prefer to call it "***** and the City"!!!) gets an entire boxed set, while we're still waiting for the rest of "The Facts of Life" (a show about REAL WOMEN!!!).
They don't even allow full episodes of these great shows to be uploaded on YouTube anymore!! I'd believe it was for copyright reasons, but then again, why keep on full episodes of "Frasier" and "Seinfeld" for?!?!?!?! Those have been on YouTube for two years now..."Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes" have only been on there for a year and they get deleted!!!
Goest to show ya that Sony is purely about sex, drugs, really bad video games and T&A!!!

BET's deal was a package deal (consists of DS, Thea, Sanford, and Malcolm & Eddie) from Sony for only 6 months. So they have to take it off by Aug. 31, but BET decided not to renew.

Taking "Diff'rent Strokes" off of BET after only a few months!! Why?!?!?! To make room for a bunch of crappy newer shows?!?!?!
Forgive me, but Steve Harvey can only dream to have half of Gary Coleman's comedic timing and talent!!!
And they choose to air a bunch of stupid "reality" programs which I find offensive to fill in the cracks!!!
Maybe if TV Land wasn't so busy showing crappy reality programs one second, then a bunch of "Andy Griffith" episodes mixed in with "Bonanza", "The Munsters" and "Home Improvement" the next, they might finally wize up and start showing "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" back-to-back!!
Not to mention Sony are a bunch of no-brain idiots for ignoring the rest of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "Facts of Life" so they can put out the entire "Seinfeld" (or as I prefer to call it "*****felt"!!!) collection, or dole out all these "Friends" collection assuming that we would much rather stare at Jennifer Aniston's a$$ or watch Courtney Cox and Mathew Perry get it on rather than classic quality programming, not to mention the fact that "Sex and the City" (or as I prefer to call it "***** and the City"!!!) gets an entire boxed set, while we're still waiting for the rest of "The Facts of Life" (a show about REAL WOMEN!!!).
They don't even allow full episodes of these great shows to be uploaded on YouTube anymore!! I'd believe it was for copyright reasons, but then again, why keep on full episodes of "Frasier" and "Seinfeld" for?!?!?!?! Those have been on YouTube for two years now..."Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes" have only been on there for a year and they get deleted!!!
Goest to show ya that Sony is purely about sex, drugs, really bad video games and T&A!!!

Right on!

I agree that BET is pure garbage and DS is the only reason why I started watching the station again. I had no idea Sony hadn't released more seasons of FOL. I made a thread griping about the hold up with the rest of the DS seasons a few weeks back as well.
And TV Land definitely needs to upgrade their show schedule. It's so many old shows I can think of that they could be airing. I miss the TV Land of old (back when it was still Nick at Nite) that used to air Patty Duke, Dick Van Dyke and Donna Reed, Three's Company, Silver Spoons. I could go on and on

Taking "Diff'rent Strokes" off of BET after only a few months!! Why?!?!?! To make room for a bunch of crappy newer shows?!?!?!
Forgive me, but Steve Harvey can only dream to have half of Gary Coleman's comedic timing and talent!!!
And they choose to air a bunch of stupid "reality" programs which I find offensive to fill in the cracks!!!
Maybe if TV Land wasn't so busy showing crappy reality programs one second, then a bunch of "Andy Griffith" episodes mixed in with "Bonanza", "The Munsters" and "Home Improvement" the next, they might finally wize up and start showing "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" back-to-back!!
Not to mention Sony are a bunch of no-brain idiots for ignoring the rest of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "Facts of Life" so they can put out the entire "Seinfeld" (or as I prefer to call it "*****felt"!!!) collection, or dole out all these "Friends" collection assuming that we would much rather stare at Jennifer Aniston's a$$ or watch Courtney Cox and Mathew Perry get it on rather than classic quality programming, not to mention the fact that "Sex and the City" (or as I prefer to call it "***** and the City"!!!) gets an entire boxed set, while we're still waiting for the rest of "The Facts of Life" (a show about REAL WOMEN!!!).
They don't even allow full episodes of these great shows to be uploaded on YouTube anymore!! I'd believe it was for copyright reasons, but then again, why keep on full episodes of "Frasier" and "Seinfeld" for?!?!?!?! Those have been on YouTube for two years now..."Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes" have only been on there for a year and they get deleted!!!
Goest to show ya that Sony is purely about sex, drugs, really bad video games and T&A!!!


Your frustration should be toward BET, why are you including Sony into DS no longer being on BET after the 31st? It's called BET not SONYTV. You have a lot of reasons to be pissed at Sony but this defintely isn't one of them.

I agree with "Maddison" that TVL is a big mess.

A couple of their major problems:

1. They buy too few shows, and show them too many times as a result. Sometimes multiple times in the same day.

2. They have lost sight of their audience and concentrate too little on older shows, with a few exceptions (Although they will Lose Lucy instead of Love Lucy!). They may need to break off a 3rd network if this continues.

3. The have changed their commecial sturcture so it basically matches ION, except they still time their break better. But they are now editing more out of sitcoms: they used to have 22 minutes of program, now 20-21.

4. Much like MTV, VH-1, etc. they're losing sight of their purpose (i.e. airing classic TV shows) and are airing more and more reality programming. What the hell does "High School Reunion" have to do with classic TV? Or "She's Got the Look"?

Not to mention the movies that are filling up the schedule.

^ I agree with both of you. Thank goodness so many classic shows are available on DVD. With the exception of the 10 PM news, Jay Leno, and the occasional House episode, I rarely watch regular TV anymore - I watch TV shows on DVD!!! :D

I feel your frustration. But, your anger should be aimed towards BET only for not renewing the show and towards Sony for not releasing the show on DVD. Man oh man, I don't know what it is exactly with this show, but it has certainly not withstood the test of time with audiences. It seems like every network that picks it up cannot wait to get rid of it only a few months later. It obviously doesn't pull in good rating anywhere or we would have seen the show get longer stints in recent years. Also, clearly the S1 & S2 DVD sales have been attrotious. Had they been anything decent, no doubt we would have seen a Season 3 DVD long ago. Its all about money and this show just doesn't make any money for anybody who touches it. And us hardcore fans have to suffer because of it. We have to put up with this same crap for Mr. Belvedere, The Hogan Family, etc. Great sitcoms that were pretty popular for their time. But, certainly not anymore. And with each passing year, they becomes a little less popular ... a little more forgotten .. which only hurts their chances of making it onto DVD
:(

I feel your frustration. But, your anger should be aimed towards BET only for not renewing the show and towards Sony for not releasing the show on DVD. Man oh man, I don't know what it is exactly with this show, but it has certainly not withstood the test of time with audiences. It seems like every network that picks it up cannot wait to get rid of it only a few months later. It obviously doesn't pull in good rating anywhere or we would have seen the show get longer stints in recent years. Also, clearly the S1 & S2 DVD sales have been attrotious. Had they been anything decent, no doubt we would have seen a Season 3 DVD long ago. Its all about money and this show just doesn't make any money for anybody who touches it. And us hardcore fans have to suffer because of it. We have to put up with this same crap for Mr. Belvedere, The Hogan Family, etc. Great sitcoms that were pretty popular for their time. But, certainly not anymore. And with each passing year, they becomes a little less popular ... a little more forgotten .. which only hurts their chances of making it onto DVD
:(

Oh, believe me, I am PO'd at BET, not only for choosing to not renew this golden show in favor of a bunch of reality shows and "Steve Harvey", also for their lousy commercial breaks and their bad editing skills (or lack there of).
However, I am really angry at other stations, like Lifetime (who could have made this great decision to air both "Facts of Life" and "Designing Women" back to back with "Golden Girls", but instead they air "Frasier" and "Will & Grace", also TV Land needs to return to showing classic TV shows beyond 1950 and they also have to get rid of the stupid reality TV crap!! Not to mention how they butchered "The Brady Bunch" to the point of only showing it at 4:30 in the morning, then completely taking it off their roster.
The biggest beef I have with Sony (actually, beefS) is that they hold up further seasons of shows we miss seeing while doling out season after season of crappy shows that are on TV all the time that are all about sex and skinny people...I mean, do we REALLY need the first season of "Gossip Girl" on DVD?!?!?! And it seems any show that isn't "Seinfeld", "Friends", "Family Guy", "Sex and the City", "Frasier" and the ALMIGHTY "Gossip Girl" will just perish in the flames of sex, drugs and skinny people!! Then, just as we discover full episodes of our beloved classic shows on YouTube, Sony decides to take the shows off, while keeping on full episodes of "Seinfeld" and "Frasier"...oh, and I also discovered full episodes of "Gossip Girl" on there!! AHHHHH!!!!!!

I can't believe I'm about to write this, especially about a Viacom owned cable network....but fair is fair and opinion is opinion...so here goes....I actually think BET treated "Diff'rent Strokes" quite good......we got nearly 2 complete runs of a series that lasted 8 seasons...they are even making good by airing the missing "Bullima" episode this thursday morning at 9:30AM eastern. They added many extra episodes, had numerous marathons and most important kept the 9am hour for nearly 4 months or so.....we don't know exactly what the ratings were but in this day and age where networks, especially viacom ones, literally change the program schedule daily, they showed diff'rent strokes regularly.......how many people remember ABC Family showing "The Hogan Family" for a week?....it never returned....as for them not renewing strokes...it was time.....for a classic show to be given two full plays with a constant timeslot was quite refreshing.....

I think there are signs that other networks are taking up where TVL has failed (and I do mean FAILED!!!, BTW Maddison BB is back on, yeah 4:30 but back on). I agree BET did well by DS; and from what I've read on here, the contract expired at the end of Aug. anyway. We have what BET did, and what WGN is (obviously, successfully) doing on Suday nights, and occasionally other nights.