Battle looms for ‘Omnibus’

When Leonard Bernstein made his first major television appearance on Nov. 16, 1954, on the television show “Omnibus,” he was hardly a household name.

With an encyclopedic knowledge and a showman’s flair, he explained the structure of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the orchestral score painted on the studio floor. A similar breezy style in later appearances established the conductor as a bridge between highbrow culture and popular tastes.

With the help of these seven appearances, Bernstein went on to become one of the best-known figures in 20th century American music.

The live broadcasts were crudely recorded with a 16-millimeter camera and never aired again. So, Bernstein fans have long wondered, why haven’t these programs been released on videotape or DVD?

The reason is that the entire “Omnibus” series, which ran almost continuously from 1952 to 1961, is stored on kinescopes in Wesleyan University’s cinema archives here and is the victim of a legal stalemate between Wesleyan and the families of Bernstein and “Omnibus” creator Robert Saudek.

Saudek’s production company, RSA Venture, donated the series’ 164 episodes to Wesleyan in 1974, with the stipulation that licensing rights remain with his company, which included “Omnibus” host Alistair Cooke as a principal.

Shortly before he died in 1997, Saudek granted reproduction and distribution rights for the seven Bernstein episodes to David Thomas, the composer’s former son-in-law. Thomas, who hopes to release the episodes on DVD, said Wesleyan had blocked his way at practically every turn. He accuses Wesleyan of keeping a cultural treasure from the public to retain the collection’s financial value.

“Wesleyan said essentially, ‘Get lost -- they’re our programs,’ ” Thomas said. “I went back to the Saudek family. They said, ‘Oh no, there’s some mistake here, let’s work it out with Wesleyan.’ And Wesleyan dismissed them too.”

Wesleyan officials maintain that the 1974 agreement with RSA Venture gives the university authority to grant access to the collection and that the agreement expressly states that the collection is for “educational and scholarly purposes.” Wesleyan’s attorney, Thomas Finn, said university officials had adamantly tried not to “commercially exploit” the material.

“There have been some documentaries that have used portions, but always in connection with the scholarly portion of Wesleyan’s agreement,” he said.

The disagreement has resulted in two lawsuits. The first was filed last year in Connecticut by Wesleyan against RSA Venture and seeks sole authority to allow access to the collection and $1 million in compensation for storage and cataloging costs.

Little action was taken on it until Thomas filed his suit against Wesleyan in February. Thomas is seeking complete access to the Bernstein collection and more than $250,000 to cover his costs so far and profits he might have made. Thomas also names RSA Venture as a defendant but says it’s simply insurance in case he isn’t able to recoup his losses.

The “Omnibus” series included appearances by cultural heavyweights such as Orson Welles, William Saroyan, Dr. Seuss and the Benny Goodman Trio. But the seven episodes that feature Bernstein, who died in 1990, are of particular interest to all parties.

“The Bernstein programs comprise the most valuable part of the collection,” Wesleyan’s lawsuit states. “Thus, any reproduction of the Bernstein programs for commercial use and distribution would significantly diminish the value of the collection.”