TravisR, I hear what you are saying but I have some thoughts. First, I don't think they need this forum to find out what customers want. They must have professional marketing/sales departments who can accurately predict this.
I agree with you 100%. Dave should have people submit their questions to him, let him collate them and then submit them to WB. I remember some of the chats where it seemed like every fifth question was about Everwood. In addition, by submitting questions beforehand, maybe then the Warner people could be prepared with answers and actually look into what's being asked about and do a little research rather than coming back with "No Plans at This Time" for 80% of the answers. While some may feel that the Game Show aspect of getting questions in may be amusing, is it really the most effective way of submitting queries and getting informative replies? And, really, considering the fact that they are gearing up to open up the floodgates on TV releases through Warner Archives, those are the people that we need to be talking to the most.
I think I recall saying that once
What I would like to know is why Warner Archive won't/can't release their titles outside the US.
Do you think that there aren't costs involved with getting a product out on the market? Take a show that aired 30, 40 or more years ago that has not been syndicated either ever or in recent times. All that likely exists are film elements. They need to be transferred and if they are not color corrected and remastered, then you get people like on this forum bitching about the quality. Okay, well to do that, it costs a minimum of about $2000 an episode. That's a low end cost. So take a one season show with 26 episodes and you are talking over $50,000 before any other costs like packaging, etc. Of course they could just do a dirty transfer and put them out as is. But then you get people watching on their 100 inch HD 3D sets who will say they can't buy it because the poor quality hurts their eyes. And there are many shows which are never going to sell the amount of units necessary to recoup its expenses. You think they are losing money by not putting stuff out. Nothing compared to how much they could lose if they did put some things out. That's why burn on demand is a great hope for niche shows. Anyone who doesn't embrace BOD really doesn't care about vintage releases because that is the ONLY way most of the shows still unavailable will ever see the light of day on legitimate releases.
Well, I can tell you that that's sometimes how it works when you are dealing with shows that are less well known and not as popular. The rarer and more obscure the show and the fewer people that want it, those are the things that may cost more and be of lesser quality. That's just how it works. If Room 222 was as popular as Hawaii Five-O (and wasn't owned by a crappy company like Fox), then it too would be released in beautiful 35mm remastered color. But merits of the show notwithstanding, its not as popular, its not going to sell nearly as well and that's why its coming out with 16mm faded prints that were transferred to 1-inch over 30 years ago. I have shows in my collection that are from black and white prints of color episodes. Am I happy about that? No but you have to take what you can get and meanwhile those black and white prints of shows like Run Buddy Run, Governor and JJ and The Good Guys are still the only copies of those series that have ever turned up. In collecting as in life, one must learn to compromise.
This is good example of the troubles of licencing a show - but then keep in mind different shows do have different contracts - another show may not have to even give talent (or heirs) anything or a small flat fee based on original contracts,or "buy outs".
Isn't that ALWAYS the case - some heir,distant or otherwise think their share is worth more than it it - that's WORSE than the music thing! 99% of the time they don't grasp that they are holding things up and will end up not making any money at all as a show rots on the shelf and loses it's value - real or percieved!
