FL
There might be some truth to it. I can imagine it's more that they wanted to control the repeats rather than block repeating full stop. It's also not a show that would work as a straight repeat anyway, but by owning it outright they can stop others releasing compilations of any kind without them being included in the decision making. There could well be some things in there (especially the early days) that they don't want seeing the light of day again, especially out of context, and if they own it it means they can control who sees what and when. It doesn't mean they're ashamed of it.
Those claims that they bought the show to stop it being repeated were ridiculous and I doubt there was the slightest truth in it. They've never been ashamed of the show or reluctant to talk about it or send it up, why would they want to keep it off air? Most likely they just bought the rights because they were going after the collapse of Zenith, along with SM:TV, and some tabloid hack tried to spice it up with the "keep it off TV" claim. I think it was The Sun that reported it, which tells you all you need to know.
There might be some truth to it. I can imagine it's more that they wanted to control the repeats rather than block repeating full stop. It's also not a show that would work as a straight repeat anyway, but by owning it outright they can stop others releasing compilations of any kind without them being included in the decision making. There could well be some things in there (especially the early days) that they don't want seeing the light of day again, especially out of context, and if they own it it means they can control who sees what and when. It doesn't mean they're ashamed of it.