Judge rules Sony can take over distribution of Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune from CBS  

US gameshow Jeopardy! has been the subject of an ongoing legal dispute

Sony can assume distribution control of gameshows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune from CBS, following a preliminary ruling from an LA judge in the messy legal spat.

The ruling, made on Thursday by Superior Court of Los Angeles County judge Kevin Brazile, comes after CBS had filed an injunction to block Sony from terminating their distribution agreements, but that was denied.

In his order, Brazile said that “Sony can begin distributing the shows and need not deliver episodes to CBS.”

Under a deal that had run for more than four decades, CBS handled distribution of the syndicated gameshows, which are owned by Sony. However, last year Sony filed a lawsuit against CBS claiming the US broadcast group had licensed the gameshows at below market value, downsized the teams that distribute and sell advertising around the shows, among other things, thus breaching its contract.

Sony therefore claimed it was entitled to terminate its distribution contracts for the gameshows. Two months ago, CBS was granted a temporary restraining order halting Sony’s efforts to take control of distributing the shows.

For its part, CBS argues that Sony is trying to “escape” the current deal by “attempting to obtain in court what it could not get at the bargaining table: the rights to the series for free, by finding any excuse it can muster.”

On Thursday, CBS Media Ventures said it is planning to appeal the decision “immediately” and that it was confident it would “prevail” once all the evidence has been heard.

“This is only a preliminary ruling based on partial evidence, not the outcome of the full case,” said a spokesperson. “We’re confident once all the evidence is heard at trial, we will prevail on the merits. In today’s ruling, the court itself recognised the balance of harm tips in CBS’s favor, so we will ask the appellate court for a stay pending our appeal.”

A spokesperson for Sony said: “We are gratified by the Court’s ruling today and we look forward to distributing our shows, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, to the 200+ stations that license and count on this programming in the US and around the world, and the millions of fans who tune in to these beloved game shows every week.”

Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! have both been under the Sony umbrella since 1994, when it acquired the gameshows’ original producer, Merv Griffin Enterprises. Eleven years earlier, Merv Griffin Enterprises had signed a long-term deal with production and syndication company King World, which was subsequently acquired by CBS in 1999.