Any day now, there will be an announcement that a company (Time-Life, I believe) will begin releasing all the episodes of Get Smart on DVD sets. Almost every long-running TV series, and even some short-term ones, will be out on DVD in the next few years, with the exception of a few where there are contractual problems. And even most of those will be solved before long.
The old Adam West Batman series is currently the subject of some sort of argument I won't pretend I understand, though it may be a simple rights squabble between Twentieth-Century Fox (which produced the show) and Warner (which now owns the characters). Get Smart has taken this long because, I'm told, the various parties who were interested were having trouble sorting out the chain of title. The shows were sold to one company, which was acquired by another, which sold portions of its library to someone else…or something of the sort. For a long time, no one was all too sure who owned them. Certain other old TV shows aren't yet out on DVD because they employ a lot of music, and music clearances for DVDs can sometimes be costly and time-consuming.
When some company approaches the issue of releasing a TV show on DVD, there are many considerations. One, of course, is getting the rights and in some cases, as it was for a time with Get Smart, that ain't easy. There are also shows where the rights can be acquired but there are complications, like a star who doesn't want the old shows released, or wants them edited a certain way. Another problem in some instances is finding good source material when negatives are missing or damaged. If you're syndicating an old show and a few episodes are absent, that may go unnoticed. It won't if someone wants to put out a DVD set that will be advertised as The Complete Whatever…
Lastly, with some shows, it seems appropriate and commercial to include special features like commentary tracks, outtakes and a little "Making of…" featurette. This isn't always easy since old footage may be lost and folks involved in the show's production are often deceased or otherwise unavailable. Everyone I know who produces "bonus material" is frustrated that they weren't able to conduct certain interviews years ago, or that the studio in question won't let them bank interview material now for DVDs that may be released a few years down the line. When my pal Howard Morris died in May, we were all saddened. A couple of different DVD companies were especially upset with themselves that they never got around to interviewing him while they could. (Howie directed the pilot to Get Smart. I don't know if that series will have interviews but if it does, it's a shame they didn't get one with him.)
One thing which amuses me — and I may have mentioned some of this before — is that I can recall when movie and TV studios used to prosecute collectors who had old footage from their shows and movies. A friend of mine in the seventies had the only copy in existence of some outtakes from things that had been filmed at a facility where he worked. He was justifiably paranoid about the FBI swooping down to arrest him or of some lawyer slapping a subpoena in his hand because he had this film. In the era of home video, many of those once classed as pirates have turned out to be valuable resources when the studios are looking to restore old films or find lost material for supplemental features. I don't know what to think of the ethics but I'm amused that they're now grateful that some people saved old film and tape, even though doing that was once considered theft.