Why has Evening Shade rarely been syndicated since it ended its run in 1994

[TMC]

The show ran for four seasons with 98 episodes and had the additional caveat of starring one of the biggest movie stars of all-time in Burt Reynolds. And yet, Evening Shade is one of those sitcoms that isn't in reruns somewhere today.

Here's some insight that I found pertaining its syndication-related issues:

Early in 1997, Thomason’s attorneys sued MTM Enterprises, claiming that the distributor was negligent in failing to get “Evening Shade” sold to TV stations in rerun syndication. The series’ repeats ended up on MTM’s sister company, the Family Channel, after a four-year run on CBS’ primetime schedule in the early 1990s.

In the arguments in L.A. Superior Court before Judge Ronald E. Cappai, MTM argued that the show’s demographics skewed so old during its CBS run that TV stations displayed a conspicuous lack of interest in buying the reruns.

Attorneys for Mozark Prods., the company owned by Thomason and his writer-producer wife, Linda Bloodworth Thomason, said MTM’s salespeople were incompetent.

Mozark also said MTM didn’t make a good-faith effort to get other cable networks to bid against Family Channel and drive up the price, which would have put more money into the pockets of the Thomasons, who are profit participants in the revenues from the aftermarkets.

But MTM points to the poor rating performance of “Evening Shade” when it began its run on Family Channel in the 1994-95 season, causing Family to downgrade the show and write it off as a money loser. “Evening Shade” is now sitting on the shelf of Twentieth TV because Twentieth’s parent, News Corp., last year bought Intl. Family Entertainment, the owner of MTM and Family Channel.

One argument that I've read is that maybe Burt Reynolds' divorce from Loni Anderson soured his image at the time. And that negative publicity may have limited interest in the show when it ended and, after a few years, people just forgot it.

[Hawkee]

The main reason why Evening Shade hasn't been seen in syndication in a long while is because there hasn't been a huge market for it since it was cancelled and it would sure be nice if any channel picked it up such as Get TV or Rewind TV since it's a wonderful show with a great storyline. Mom used to love this show because it was so neat and the theme song was so cute too
Bestie

[TMC]

Evening Shade may have also, simply been a show that skewed older. And its potential audience may be, to put it morbidly, dying off. At least, that's one other argument that I've read.