CBS Media Ventures is fighting to retain distribution rights to the popular game shows. Sony Pictures owns and produces the shows. The contract governing distribution was cemented in the early 1980s.

Sony Pictures Television , which produces syndicated TV game shows "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!", told distributor CBS Studios on Monday that it is taking back global distribution of the programs because of alleged contract violations by CBS.

CBS has blocked Sony from canceling its lucrative distribution deals for “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” while the two sides clash in court over their decades-old contracts. Sony moved on Monday morning to try to take over distribution of the shows to more than 200 stations around the country,

Culver City-based Sony said it would send new episodes directly to television stations, escalating the contract dispute with CBS. Paramount-owned CBS said it would go to court to try to block Sony's action.

A judge has stepped in to block, at least for the moment, Sony’s efforts to take over distribution of syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune from CBS. On Thursday,

"To turne thy whele and be my frende again, and sende me joy where I am nowe in pain," says the famed 15th century Findern manuscript of Fortune's whims. Verse that may be hitting a little harder than usual over at Sony this morning as the media giant saw the courts put the brakes put