The Official Network Thread

[tim_p]

Originally Posted by harry o

That's such a shame love Andrew pixleys efforts on all the ITC related series and to think it could have came about.

Shoestring and The Sweeney too. Andrew Pixley’s viewing notes are essential accompaniments to the shows. The cover to the Shoestring notes is in the style of era correct Radio Times.

[harry o]

Originally Posted by tim_p

Shoestring and The Sweeney too. Andrew Pixley’s viewing notes are essential accompaniments to the shows. The cover to the Shoestring notes is in the style of era correct Radio Times.

I've got that epic bible size book that came with the "UFO" network blu ray set a mass of information indeed.

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by DavidRoylance

Also very sad that The Name of the Game appears to be some sort of "rights" Hell and that Shout had to cancel their proposed dvd release.

That planned and later scrapped DVD release of The Name of the Game I was a bit disappointed by (only the first season of The Defenders had a DVD release by Shout (sadly no further seasons).

[eastieoaks]

Professionals and Sweeney are getting a full DVD release in Aus from Viavision in January 2024 with the Sweeney set having new Audio Commentaries. I wonder if they'll get round to doing a bluray set?

[grahams76]

That's disappointing regarding The Sweeney as you'd have thought a blu-ray release would come out at the same time and now seems more unlikely to happen?

[CouncilSpectre]

Originally Posted by grahams76

That's disappointing regarding The Sweeney as you'd have thought a blu-ray release would come out at the same time and now seems more unlikely to happen?

True, but it may be that the Sweeney restorations weren’t finished by the time Network went t*ts up. Given all the teasers before their demise it seemed that something might be close but who knows…

Just hope the restorations turn up somewhere , eventually.

[harry o]

Would love to know the full story behind networks sad demise they have left a huge void.

[Kyliefan1]

Originally Posted by eastieoaks

Professionals and Sweeney are getting a full DVD release in Aus from Viavision in January 2024 with the Sweeney set having new Audio Commentaries. I wonder if they'll get round to doing a bluray set?

Neither The Sweeney or the new release of The Professionals are listed on the Via Vision website. Only the original complete series DVD release of The Professionals by Via Vison from January 2019 is listed but that is out of stock.

[Kyliefan1]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

True, but it may be that the Sweeney restorations weren’t finished by the time Network went t*ts up. Given all the teasers before their demise it seemed that something might be close but who knows…

Just hope the restorations turn up somewhere , eventually.

I've read that there was only 1 episode left of The Sweeney to be restored in HD before Network entered liquidation, so if every episode from series 2 and 3 had been remastered then Network could have released them seperately to avoid entering liquidation rather than waiting for a complete series blu ray box set release.

[MillyD]

Unfortunately, and it was really why was my favorite label, they didn't have much buisness sense. People worked out they could wait, for their over generous sales. Then it didn't seem for example The Sweeney wasn;t as popular as hoped.
They could have learned a lot from the way Indicator operate.

[Douglas R]

Originally Posted by harry o

Would love to know the full story behind networks sad demise they have left a huge void.

I doubt that there is much more of a story other than poor financial management in presumably not balancing the books and creditors calling in loans. There's unlikely to be any public explanation though.

[DawnShadow]

Originally Posted by Kyliefan1

Network could have released them seperately to avoid entering liquidation rather than waiting for a complete series blu ray box set release.

Yes this whole situation could have been avoided if they’d just done that. What a ridiculous post. You think their situation was so simple that two new releases would have prevented this and they were like nah liquidation it is?

[The Hornets]

They had been running with massive amounts of debt for years. Sure I read somewhere may insolvencies recently (never seen confirmed if applied to Network) were Inland Revenue playing hardball on monies owed. Also paying back any Covid loans they may have had off the Government.

Think a big problem they had was the cost of all the HD restorations they were doing as that means you have cash outflow potentially years before you got money back from sales.

That was why for shows like The Baron they were doing the teaser TVM release to get money to do full show.

Also as the restorations were expensive the last year they went down the big box Super Deluxe route but many of these failed to sell out and they had to release standard versions to get cash. Many of these only sold out in the panic buys after Network went bust.

However, through all this think others earlier were correct in that Network trashed their image with their customer base by the frequent and very generous sales they ran over the years. If you could live without the limited edition stuff why on earth would anyone ever pay full price.

[PGW]

"...they went down the big box Super Deluxe route but many of these failed to sell out."

I think the Gerry Anderson boxes sold out, didn't they? I know the "Stingray" deluxe and "Captain Scarlet" boxes did.

[The Hornets]

Originally Posted by PGW

"...they went down the big box Super Deluxe route but many of these failed to sell out."

I think the Gerry Anderson boxes sold out, didn't they? I know the "Stingray" deluxe and "Captain Scarlet" boxes did.

They were definitely available from Gerry Anderson store post Network crash but were quickly snapped up.

For Stingray, the £110 Super Deluxe Edition sold out extremely fast only a short way into the pre-order period. Think the Deluxe was still around when they went under.

It seemed Gerry Anderson store took all the Anderson stuff that was still in the Network warehouse, as they sold off other stuff as well post Network's demise.

It is Network's other titles where there is no clarity of what if anything has happened to date with the stock still held by Network. It doesn't appear this has been sold off by anyone else yet and the liquidators had put up for sale as a "job lot".

[edmonddantes]

not sure if this was the case, but seems so, of businesses that don't quite plan at the start the business model that they're going to be applying so even when they're successful they go broke. Ive seen it several times and its so damn frustrating to see good offers the public enjoys but that haven't been quite thought-out.

Ive been SEO manager for several companies that you'd think were really successful but that had to stop doing marketing because they were going into red, despite being quite successful and having an apparent great ROI, except that their business plan was not well analyzed and checked.

Before starting a business the most important part is to make a good plan, do numbers to see if your model is viable and beneficial, particularly with small businesses like your average boutique label (not the arrows or kinos of this world)

[The Hornets]

The survival of any business is a positive cashflow.

Problem with Network is they were paying lots of costs upfront or during the long period (in some cases multiple years) when they were doing an HD restoration of a show and they had no sales of that item to defray the costs they had been incurring.

In some respects this is why a crowd funding model would have been better for some of their releases as you get the money from the sales day 1 before any work has been done and those sales then fund the restoration work. However, does mean you could as a customer be tying money up for many years, so you are living on the goodwill of those customers to carry on supporting you.

[DavidRoylance]

Also, in agreement with the above post.

I think also that Tim Beddows had skills as a business owner to be able to negotiate with people like the Revenue and his death left a leadership hole that no one else was able to step into. Conjecture, of course.

[DavidRoylance]

I am showing my son the Network The World at War, a series 50 years old last week. Network were absolute treasures. He is learning so much about stuff that has only been glanced at in his school history lessons.

I am also introducing him to The Prisoner via Network's glorious blu ray set.

Please God, give us a new version of Network for Christmas!

[Raggady_jack]

Anybody know what's going on here? Rarewaves have pre-orders up for titles distributed by Network. I wonder if this might be some of the liquidated stock starting to come through.
https://www.rarewaves.com/products/5...1978-region-b2
https://www.rarewaves.com/products/5...ries-region-b2
https://www.rarewaves.com/products/5...tmas-region-b2