I know a lot of fans have been watching the series since it began years ago, but my first introduction to it was around 1992 or '93, when I was either ten or eleven. Of course, this was on A&E Mystery Theater, where they'd rotate it along with Mcloud, McMillan and Wife, and later a bunch of other cop shows, not all necessarily associated with "The NBC Mystery Movie" from the '70s. At that time, my two favorite t.v. shows had become "In Search of..." and "Columbo", both on A&E, and on certain weekday mornings the latter would be aired directly after the former, so it became a fun experience to watch these two distinctly '70s, but otherwise unrelated(well, except for both featuring Leonard Nimoy)series, one right after another. A&E quickly became my favorite channel, with "Mysteries of the Bible"(narrated by "A Friend in Deed's" Richard Kiley) being another favorite series on that network.
Anyway, around 1995 or '96, I began tape recording almost every episode, and greatly cherish those recordings to this day(especially the unique intros and ad bumpers, where the various characters were portrayed as paper cut-outs, with funny little animations and so forth). It wasn't until about a decade or more later, however, when I first started collecting the DVDs, that I noticed how much editing had been done on the A&E versions. When comparing the two versions of "Old Fashioned Murder", for example, in the scene where Ruth and Columbo are talking in the room that's put him "under a spell", there are whole sections of that one conversation that were cut, though it was done so well that prior to seeing the complete version I never suspected that there might have been certain parts omitted. (In the full version, the explanation of the supposed "insect bite" on Milton Shaffer's body certainly helped clear things up) Other instances of noticeable editing were in "Death Lends a Hand", where the scenes showing Brimmer's operative at home with his family were cut, as well as "Suitable for Framing", where the wonderful scene with the landlady was omitted. Now, I know the "Columbo Phile" makes mention of supposedly gratuitous editing for when the series was aired on certain "Late Movie" slots in the early 80s, and I was wondering if perhaps there are any recordings of those showing how bad it was, or if perhaps anyone has any memory of it?
Anyway, I hope no one's minded my reminiscing about A&E's Columbo, and if anyone has any information on that previous editing of the series, please share!

I don't remember if this was how it was edited on A+E but my old syndication recording of "Blueprint For Murder" was totally missing John Fiedler's scene.

Eric, though I haven't checked for sure, I do believe that scene was in the A&E version. That's one of my favorite scenes from the episode, though I suppose it isn't a vital one, aside from it setting up the next scene with Columbo meeting Goldie in the waiting room.
Anyway, thanks for sharing that, Eric! I've been quite curious about the cut material in those syndicated episodes after reading about how extensively it had been done. I'd also be interested in knowing about how WGN edited the shows when they aired them in the mid-90s; though I used to watch some of these, the only one I ever recorded was "Playback", which is also one of the few I never got off of A&E. It would be interesting to know if WGN's editing was much different from A&E's, since they were both airing them around the same time.

A&E didn't "edit" the shows they presented. They BUTCHERED them.

However, it was the only cable network offering the series on TV at the time, so I learned to live with it. All it did was to motivate me to find and view the uncut versions on VHS tape when (and if) they were ever to become available, which materialized toward the mid-90's.

Interestingly enough, Columbia House was the first commercial outlet that I knew of to offer Columbo at $24.95 plus $4.00 S/H per episode, and I was glad to pay it. In fact, the first one I bought was "Etude In Black" and I couldn't believe how much of it A&E had sacrificed in favor of advertisers.

I can tell you one thing, those master prints were as amazing as the sound quality.

Concerning "Etude in Black", I know one fairly extensive, but not necessarily important, scene I first discovered when I viewed the DVD version was where Janice and her mother meet the two men at the restaurant. I thought that scene conveyed, among other things, a strong sense of how troubled Janice had become following the murder, having a lingering suspicion about her husband. I think it's a pretty good scene, and it's a shame it had been missing for so long on television. One scene that I wanted to mention, that was cut from "Murder by the Book", was the well-framed (though admittedly morbid) shot of Ken gesturing toward Jim's body with drinking glass in hand, as if to "toast" the man he had just murdered. It's one of the few gruesome scenes in the series, so I wonder if that was part of the reason it was cut (besides the fact that it has absolutely no story significance, other than cementing the fact that Ken is a really creepy guy).