Not The Nine O'Clock News - Why no proper DVDs? Page 2

Quote: TonyT @ 27th August 2017, 10:31 AM

I was thinking about this, and wondering if, as a collective, it would be possible to buy the rights and then sell them sell the DVD or something, but it's probably more than any of us would be prepared to invest, and as you say, I doubt the returns would be that good.

I'd love to do this for a few shows, but the list of credits on any programme is endless.

View original

I suspect it's more that no one person holds the rights so it;s not a cost issue as such. It was made before the internet and DVD and quite possibly before VHS/Betamax took off. Need to check the dates on that one but there's probably some badly filled in paperwork at the BBC's Written Archives and then a whole load of individuals each of whom you would have to reach agreement with. In some instances such as Mel Smith it will be his estate.

There are some interesting posts by the producer of the Joking Apart DVD about some of the challenges he faced.

http://www.replaydvd.co.uk/

VHS and Betamax had been out for a year or two by the time NTNON first aired, but I'm not sure what this would have to do with the rights to the series? I can't imagine tracking everyone down would necessarily be an issue as plenty of older shows than this have been released on DVD and there's already a couple of highlights DVD available, so I doubt it's an issue of bureaucracy. I think that, as Aaron stated much earlier, that it's down to the topical nature of the material more than anything else.

The Young Ones' Nigel Planer co-wrote the That's Life sketch. I often use that fact to break the ice at parties.

Quote: Ben @ 3rd September 2017, 4:12 PM

VHS and Betamax had been out for a year or two by the time NTNON first aired, but I'm not sure what this would have to do with the rights to the series?

View original

It's to do with the type of contract that would have been agreed at the time. In my admittedly limited experience of rights clearance the newer the contract the easier it is to clear. With home media formats starting to appear more contracts had mentions of reuse and resale.

Even until fairly recently (well about 10 years or so) the BBC quite often had different rights for Digital/Internet, DVDs, rebroadcast etc negotiated by different teams which was a real pain when you wanted to reuse an extract,