Quote:
Originally Posted by McCrutchy
It's gotten to the point, even in the UK, where other, often smaller labels are picking up the slack where they can, surely where co-productions mean that other labels are responsible for DVD and Blu-ray releases of BBC TV material. Look at the releases of Mrs. Brown's Boys from Universal UK (admittedly a large company, but also with the widest variety of UK Blu-ray releases), or the BBC TV releases from Acorn (Broadchurch, The Fall) or Spirit Entertainment (Father Brown). If Blu-ray releases are viable on a smaller scale for these UK companies, then the BBC should be capable of more at home. They don't even release the French series they air from Canal (Spiral), while Canal's similar French crime series Braquo gets UK Blu-ray releases from Arrow, who are still a much smaller company than the BBC, and who manage dozens of UK Blu-ray releases of films as well.
The current mantra from the BBC would seem to be: If it's nature, or it's effects-driven, or if it's Sherlock, release it on Blu-ray. Otherwise, don't bother.
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Some of those examples are unfair, Arrow charge a lot for their blu-ray releases, and they only come down in price during clearances, if BBCW charged those kinds of prices shit would hit the fan and the papers would accuse them of blatant profiteering for content people "have already paid for", where as BBCW's price points are more reasonable.
Acorn only released Broadchurch several months after the DVD release, as demand had been proven, much to the annoyance of some on this forum, despite the fact the series was a sleeper hit, and by the time Acorn realised this it was probably too late to do anything...
One would also note, Sherlock, Mrs. Brown's Boys and Broadchurch all achieve very high ratings for their respective networks, The Fall got high ratings for it's respective networks. Quirke did alright, similar viewership figures to The Fall, but as a miniseries perhaps alright wasn't good enough...