Mark To
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2004
- Messages
- 570
Some examples which really burn me up:
DVD releases: It is now becomming clear that the "Golden Era" is over and we are starting to see more and more shows issued in cut, syndication form because that is what is available on the most convenient format and won't incure additional transfer costs. Cases in point: Alf, Branded and the most recent one, Make Room for Daddy, with episodes timing out at under 22 minutes for a 50s show. Yet no company, big or small, would even think of releasing a movie that had been cut for television. So now you have the conundrum of if a show is already on tape but cut, will the expense of remastering be justified by the additional sales. Yet, if its put out cut, who will want it?
Television: We have had for many years now (although still not on my horrid cable system) Turner Classic Movies, showing 24 hours a day movies from all eras. Many of these are obscure, unknown and very old. But all are shown complete, uncut and uninterupted. Yet we have no such outlet for television. Older, more obscure shows, many of them worthwhile, are left to languish in the studios vaults forever. TV Land is the viewing equivalent of Oldies radio - take the most popular 1% and play it to death, over and over again and ignore the other 99%. Yet even when an older show does get resurrected, such as Johnny Staccato on the soon to be demolished Trio network, it will be severely edited or as Trio does, have a crawl on the bottom of the screen throughout the entire program. Again, things that no network would ever consider doing to a movie. Or the Hallmark channel, which does so much cutting for commercials, that over 25% of a program's content is chopped out. One hour shows from the 50s and 60s, which originally ran about 51+ minutes are sliced to under 40 minutes. I'm not saying that these networks don't have a right to make money but what I am lamenting is the fact that there are no outlets to see these shows uncut. Why isn't there a Turner Classic Television? They certainly have the library for it. Fox Movie Channel but yet no Fox Television Channel. I realize there are many crappy old TV shows but there are also many crappy old movies too. Warner, Fox, Sony, Universal and especially Paramount certainly have massive amounts of product that could be used for a TV only network. I know that original ideas are scarce in this business but what if there was a 24 hour, commercial free, TV-only network? I would gladly pay for that. Forget TV Land, that would be TV Paradise.
DVD releases: It is now becomming clear that the "Golden Era" is over and we are starting to see more and more shows issued in cut, syndication form because that is what is available on the most convenient format and won't incure additional transfer costs. Cases in point: Alf, Branded and the most recent one, Make Room for Daddy, with episodes timing out at under 22 minutes for a 50s show. Yet no company, big or small, would even think of releasing a movie that had been cut for television. So now you have the conundrum of if a show is already on tape but cut, will the expense of remastering be justified by the additional sales. Yet, if its put out cut, who will want it?
Television: We have had for many years now (although still not on my horrid cable system) Turner Classic Movies, showing 24 hours a day movies from all eras. Many of these are obscure, unknown and very old. But all are shown complete, uncut and uninterupted. Yet we have no such outlet for television. Older, more obscure shows, many of them worthwhile, are left to languish in the studios vaults forever. TV Land is the viewing equivalent of Oldies radio - take the most popular 1% and play it to death, over and over again and ignore the other 99%. Yet even when an older show does get resurrected, such as Johnny Staccato on the soon to be demolished Trio network, it will be severely edited or as Trio does, have a crawl on the bottom of the screen throughout the entire program. Again, things that no network would ever consider doing to a movie. Or the Hallmark channel, which does so much cutting for commercials, that over 25% of a program's content is chopped out. One hour shows from the 50s and 60s, which originally ran about 51+ minutes are sliced to under 40 minutes. I'm not saying that these networks don't have a right to make money but what I am lamenting is the fact that there are no outlets to see these shows uncut. Why isn't there a Turner Classic Television? They certainly have the library for it. Fox Movie Channel but yet no Fox Television Channel. I realize there are many crappy old TV shows but there are also many crappy old movies too. Warner, Fox, Sony, Universal and especially Paramount certainly have massive amounts of product that could be used for a TV only network. I know that original ideas are scarce in this business but what if there was a 24 hour, commercial free, TV-only network? I would gladly pay for that. Forget TV Land, that would be TV Paradise.