Utopia: Series Two

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by malcy30

You have captured the quandry that especially the TV companies have with releasing their shows on BD. They want a premium price to make up for the chip as chips DVD prices and the lower revenue they make from the subscription streaming (Netflix etc) compared to DVDs golden age in the late 1990s / early 2000s when they could sell large volumes of new release TV shows on DVD at £30 to £50 a season (people now expect that price for a whole shows run so 7+ seasons).

There are two things they forget
- Economic climate is very different to 10 years ago where the mass public need to save money so are happy with a cheap DVD boxset or watching via Netflix, Virgin, Sky etc on demand
- There is a market for BD but it needs to be a premium product at a fair price eg look at the effort studios like Arrow, Eureka and BFI but into their BD with loads of newly commissioned extras at around £13 a go.
What people will not pay for is when a TV company releases a series / season of TV and expects £30+ with no extras and minimal cost to them as show already exists in HD.

It seems in the UK studios are happy to say we are prepared to forgo BD sales as enough people will buy DVD instead and the "real BD fans" will import from elsewhere so we still get our money.

Also for UK TV I am sure I have read there are licensing cost and residual issues for the actors fees. So sell a BD of a BBC, ITV or C4 show in the UK and the actors get a cut. Release in Spain, Germany or US and they get hardly anything or nothing so much lower fees for the local distributor so making a BD release more economic.

I do feel however the public broadcasters BBC and C4 should be much more proactive with BD even if it is only breaks even for them. They still sell to the BD sterotype that product only sells to "boys with toys" so with the BBC you get BDs of Top Gear and Doctor Who but not the costume dramas as their older audience are happy with cheap DVDs.

C4 are presently a loss making venture (with huge cash reserves - which is why it wasn't especially big news), so maybe they should get into profit first, before focussing on stuff that won't make any money.

With the BBC, there's another factor that causes a problem for BD releases. People pay the licence fee to the BBC (some of it goes to S4C and other projects, but most people see it as going to the BBC), and so they can't charge a lot for DVD or BD releases, otherwise they get accused of profiteering, and people go off on one about how they've already paid for it once and shouldn't have to pay again. So the BBC may not always be able to get away with expensive releases of less popular series, even if it wanted to.

[Jack Priest]

Germany seem to be getting series 1 on Blu-ray, so fingers crossed for a series 2 release too.

[NoFro]

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

Germany seem to be getting series 1 on Blu-ray, so fingers crossed for a series 2 release too.

I tend not to buy Blus with non-English packaging but for this I would make an exception as I'm desperate to have this! Would be awesome if someone made an English sleeve, to match the style of the Series 1 UK release.

[stevo4264]

Please let this be true

[FastAndFluid]

I fear what we are seeing is the beginning of the end. The film/TV companies are determined to force us down the streaming/download route to cut out the distributors. Fox have screwed everyone worldwide with what they've done with "Modern Family", "Glee", "Bones" etc and "Utopia" is just another example where a TV company have lulled some of us in with the disc and then abandoned it at the first opportunity. And it's not all going to end (many years later) as happily as it did with "The Sopranos" boxed set.

When HD hit in the form of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray I sold off all my DVDs whilst I could get a half-reasonable price for them. Hard not to think I should probably be doing the same again now before the value of second-hand Blu-Ray plummets to an all-time low :-(

[NP13]

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

Germany seem to be getting series 1 on Blu-ray, so fingers crossed for a series 2 release too.

The UK got series 1 on Blu, but alas not series 2. Not surprising really, weren't the ratings pretty low?

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by NP13

The UK got series 1 on Blu, but alas not series 2. Not surprising really, weren't the ratings pretty low?

The BD release was canned before the series even aired. But, yes, series 2 was down by quite a margin on series 1, which is a shame for people that enjoyed it. My guess is that it does well on PVR and 4oD, but that's not really very helpful as it's very hard to make money from online streaming without charging for it...

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by NoFro

I tend not to buy Blus with non-English packaging but for this I would make an exception as I'm desperate to have this! Would be awesome if someone made an English sleeve, to match the style of the Series 1 UK release.

You could probably photoshop your own using the DVD cover art.

[NoFro]

Originally Posted by Foggy

You could probably photoshop your own using the DVD cover art.

If there's a release I will certainly try! But I'm pretty rubbish at those sort of things haha.

[anderscja]

What Channel 4 have done with Utopia represents what is wrong with TV on Blu-ray at the moment.

It is not the first time that a 1st season of TV show has been released on Blu-ray only for the following seasons to go back to being on DVD only.

It is very frustrating and sometimes puts me off buying TV on Blu-ray until I know the entire show will be released in the same format.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by anderscja

What Channel 4 have done with Utopia represents what is wrong with TV on Blu-ray at the moment.

It is not the first time that a 1st season of TV show has been released on Blu-ray only for the following seasons to go back to being on DVD only.

It is very frustrating and sometimes puts me off buying TV on Blu-ray until I know the entire show will be released in the same format.

Which is, ironically, why they won't release most TV shows on BD...

[Jado3Dhead]

ASDA and Morrisons have not stocked S2, even though i remember seeing S1 in ASDA around it's launch. A few months after the launch, i could not find the DVD version anywhere in retail, let alone the Blu-ray. The only retail store i've seen S2 in is hmv, it seems channel 4 have lost faith in the programme (financially) wise.
The only way to see S2 in HD quality is on a streaming service.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by Jado3Dhead

ASDA and Morrisons have not stocked S2, even though i remember seeing S1 in ASDA around it's launch. A few months after the launch, i could not find the DVD version anywhere in retail, let alone the Blu-ray. The only retail store i've seen S2 in is hmv, it seems channel 4 have lost faith in the programme (financially) wise.
The only way to see S2 in HD quality is on a streaming service.

If it isn't in stores, it probably means the stores don't see it as financially viable, rather than C4. C4 can't really force ASDA or Morrisons or whoever to take copies...

And since neither series rated very well and we can guess the first season didn't make enough money in blu-ray, maybe C4 are justified...

[NP13]

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/utopia/3...n-for-series-3

I didn't realise the ratings had been so bad. I knew they weren't great, but...

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by NP13

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/utopia/3...n-for-series-3

I didn't realise the ratings had been so bad. I knew they weren't great, but...

I knew the ratings were bad, but I thought critical acclaim might scrape it another series. Everyone on the comments board seems pissed at Channel 4, but ultimately there's not a lot else they could do. It went into it's second series with buzz and a fairly big promo campaign, and it proceeded only to do worse than the first. Short of putting it on at 9PM, which would probably cause problems with Ofcom, they gave the best shot any network could have...

[NP13]

Originally Posted by Buzz201

I knew the ratings were bad, but I thought critical acclaim might scrape it another series. Everyone on the comments board seems pissed at Channel 4, but ultimately there's not a lot else they could do. It went into it's second series with buzz and a fairly big promo campaign, and it proceeded only to do worse than the first. Short of putting it on at 9PM, which would probably cause problems with Ofcom, they gave the best shot any network could have...

Yeah, I know what you mean. Really disappointing, but not exactly unexpected.
At least there's David Fincher's version to look forward to anyway! (and it might even get a new life on Netflix)

[Jado3Dhead]

Channel 4 are to blame for airing S2 in the summer on par with Big Brother and Geordie Shore. That is what probably damaged the ratings.
S1 aired in the winter and got 1+ million views, they should have transmitted it in the autumn. This must be one of the reasons why there isn't a Blu-ray release.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by Jado3Dhead

Channel 4 are to blame for airing S2 in the summer on par with Big Brother and Geordie Shore. That is what probably damaged the ratings.
S1 aired in the winter and got 1+ million views, they should have transmitted it in the autumn. This must be one of the reasons why there isn't a Blu-ray release.

Horseshit, on both fronts.

C4 gave it a lot of promo, it was featured heavily on C4 idents, there were adverts all over the place on the network, it had a lot of buzz and blog coverage, and it didn't even do moderately well. It might have improved a bit in the autumn, but I think really it had to match or better previous figures to stand a chance of renewal, as it's series one figures were average at best.

To put it another way, a recent episode of Gogglebox on Channel 4+1 not including it's C4 showing, got more viewers than every single episode of Utopia series two (figures aren't available for the last two episodes, but to match the Gogglebox repeat it would have had to grow by 286,000 viewers)...

The DVD was released very soon after the series ended, Channel 4 cancelled the blu-ray release before the series aired. Unless of course, C4 decided to take a loss on the production costs of the blu-ray master. (The series aired over 5 weeks, I doubt they'd leave it that late to produce the blu-ray master.)

[HornyRhino"]

i still say all series if being cancelled should have a final ending made...all these series that get axed and there are a lot of them should by necessity have a final conclusion once they decided to axe it.

if this was a library and 35% of the books were half empty of any text nobody would bother reading the books.

it just really ticks me off when these broadcasters whether British or American axe a show without any conclusion and now the new in thing as many have said stopping any Blu-rays and using DVD only just double sucks.

in any case i really cant see why a conclusion was not filmed if the show was axed straight away after filming as its not that many episodes to it..
its not like its an American 22 episodes per season show

guess ill have to just get the dvd oh well....hope they have at least put extras on it.

[malcy30]

Remember TV drama shows outside the soaps in the UK are usually filmed many months before broadcast and usually everything is completely before the show starts. Therefore a cancellation mid way through the broadcast run is too late to do anything. It's why UK producers tend to make shows self contained with the series so if no more are made its not usually ended on a cliffhanger.

Very different to the US where network shows because of the 20+ episodes a season are usually filming only a few weeks ahead of broadcast, so if pulled mid season they can stop production mid way through the season and bin the U broadcast episodes or burn off on Saturday nights or in the summer the two grave yard slots for US network TV. Also US producers tend to end much more frequently on a cliffhanger hoping for a renewal. However some like CSI NY wrapped each season for the last 3 years or so on a potential conclusion until it was finally killed as bubble show and they treated the audience with respect not wanting to end on a cliffhanger. I hope CSI are doing the same this year as looks unlikely that will come back.

In terms of TV on BD in the UK you need very big audiences to justify a BD and Utopia's were just too small.