Legal Knightmare DVDs
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The best move any single person can make would be to go and stick a fiver in to Google adwords.
If 500 people click on the link, then 500 people know about it. If they all tell two people, then 1000 people know about it.
Even if only 20% of them sign up and post their support, that's 200 more names.
It's what I'll be doing when the new site launches. Though I'm of limited funds and money spent there is money that can't be spent on buying episode rights.
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Well, I'm always living in hope, but I'm not willing to wait till 2017 to see IF official DVD's of Knightmare will appear. I don't have Challenge TV so the last time I saw Knightmare was when it was first on telly. I've been greatly tempted to get a copy of the show off Ebay but I've been holding out for word of an official release. I'm willing to wait a bit longer but I really do want to see Knightmare again and I think if the DVD release doesn't get the go ahead, I'll buy from Ebay.
Always living in hope!!
Paul.
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I take it from reading the posts here that this idea is not going to come to pass? If not, then I'm giving in and I'm going to invest in a DVD set from Ebay.
I miss the show and really do want to see it again so if, from the looks of it, this project to get Knightmare to DVD has flopped, then finally I'm going to nab myself a DVD set from Ebay.
I really do want to see Knightmare again and I think if the DVD release doesn't get the go ahead, I'll buy from Ebay.
Perhaps this might be a good moment to remember that Tim Child made a point of giving KM fans a 'friendly warning' on the subject of piracy:
... Please be cautious and above all be discreet.
I'm not willing to wait till 2017
Have you seen the time at which you posted that? -
I hear what you're saying, Drassel, but how long do I wait? The show has not been repeated on any of the television stations I have and I've held out a long time now for DVD's to appear. If it was available to buy I would invest and not go for a pirated copy, but if the pirated copy is the only way for me to see Knightmare again, then some lucky seller on Ebay can have my cash, I'll be happy to have it all on DVD R's.
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Ignoring DVDs for a second, how much money are we talking here to secure distribution rights to allow downloading of:
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One episode?
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A series?
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The lot?
Is the main cost paying off the actors that were involved? What other major costs are involved? Please excuse my ignorance here, I'm not too familiar with the industry.
Cheers,
Tiggy
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You're looking at between 400 - 600 pounds per episode depending on what level of distribution you want (UK or global).
Just multiply it up per series or for the lot. There's no discount for bulk buying.
Those care the costs for each episode. All of the royalties are dealt with by the rights holders.
The other major cost is in credit card processing. There's no real solution to micropayments. Most credit card sales cost 20p+ per transaction. So if you buy each episode one at a time, we lose 20% on each sale. Bulk buying is problematic if we only have the capital to buy one episode at a time.
Other costs include bandwidth (the files will be big), site operation, company registration and insurance (the rights holders won't deal with you unless you're protected from malpractice).
In total we've guesstimated at least 500 pounds per episode.
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You're looking at between 400 - 600 pounds per episode depending on what level of distribution you want (UK or global).
Just multiply it up per series or for the lot. There's no discount for bulk buying.
Those care the costs for each episode. All of the royalties are dealt with by the rights holders.
The other major cost is in credit card processing. There's no real solution to micropayments. Most credit card sales cost 20p+ per transaction. So if you buy each episode one at a time, we lose 20% on each sale. Bulk buying is problematic if we only have the capital to buy one episode at a time.
Other costs include bandwidth (the files will be big), site operation, company registration and insurance (the rights holders won't deal with you unless you're protected from malpractice).
In total we've guesstimated at least 500 pounds per episode.
Thanks for letting us know this, Mystara, but I must say I'm shocked at the costs involved! £500 per episode does seem really expensive, but is this a normal sort-of price in the TV industry for an individual episode from the master tapes of a series etc? I thought it would be something like £50 per episode - but this shows how little I know about it all etc! I do salute you though, Mystara, for trying to get this idea off-the-ground btw. If only a lottery jackpot winner could get involved & help towards the financial woes hey? We can but dream I guess! Oh well...
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I suspect it's pretty cheap for the industry. Given the production costs of some TV shows, I wouldn't be surprised if the broadcast or DVD rights to one series of an American show went for several million pounds.
I forgot to add, you also need to buy a master copy of each episode which may cost up to another £100 (again, per episode).
If it cost £50 per episode, we'd probably have no problems raising the cash.
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My God, I didn't think you were looking at those kinds of figures. £500 an episode, and what is it, 20 episodes a season? So that's £10,000 for a season!! Eight seasons... Works out at at about £75,000 (season 8 had a cut production run)... Now, let's say each season sold for £50 (which I feel is way too much but lets be optimistic) and we say everyone buys one copy of every season, that's £50 x 8 = £400. So do the maths and... You need 188 interested people, which is lower then I expected. Now we know not everyone is going to buy all eight seasons, and the boxsets probably won't be £50 each, but according to my maths, we have the numbers to cover the costs?!?! So...
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I think the flaw in your logic is that people will pay £50 per series.
I certainly wouldn't pay £400 for the complete set of Knightmare episodes.
Our assumption is that people will be prepared to pay between £1 and £2 per episode, which brings us to approximately 500 people.
Although obviously, the exact numbers depend on many factors such as distribution region, whether we can get the masters available as MPEGS rather than DVDs and how much the miscellaneous extras cost.
More importantly, none of us HAS £75,000. The only way we can make the process work is to invest in buying a couple of episodes of series 1 (costing us around £1000). We then wait to recover those costs and reinvest by buying the next episode and making it available for sale.
But if the required number of sales was never reached, we'd never regain enough money to buy the next episode and the buying process stalls. Either way it works out at 500 people wanting to buy the entire box set at about £75.
We're even debating whether this is a good thing to do, since we can only get our initial investment back if the process works right until the end and it doesn't look there's sufficient support for that to happen. As the figures currently stand, it seems dead certain that we'd lose our money.
And as was said before, this completely ignores the issues of DVDs which is what many people are after.
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£500 an episode, and what is it, 20 episodes a season?
Nope, it was eight episodes for season one, ten for season eight, and all the others 16. Not to say that it wouldn't still be pricey, bit if this plan were to go ahead, season one would be the cheapest (and most wise!).
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Wow Mystara - thanks for the numbers, and I have to say that I'm rather shocked! Again, excuse my ignorance but surely a deal could be done given that it is a 15+ year old children's game show that will never see the light of day on a commercial basis again? I would have thought that some money is better than nothing for the rights holders...
Anyway, there's a £113M Euromillions jackpot this Friday and if I get a sizeable chunk of that I'll be more than happy to fund a DVD release
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Nope, it was eight episodes for season one, ten for season eight, and all the others 16. Not to say that it wouldn't still be pricey, bit if this plan were to go ahead, season one would be the cheapest (and most wise!).
Seasons 6 and 7 had 15 episodes I thought giving a total of 112. So based on the estimated download pricing, a cost of £112 to £224 for everything. I don't think that's unreasonable at all given that you pay 79p per song at itunes...
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I should say that my estimate of £75 came from a complete guess as to the number of episodes. I didn't bother to look it up.
I don't know whether negotiation is possible or not, but I have to say that it seems unlikely. For one thing, we don't have a team of lawyers. For another thing, we're only proposing to buy one episode at a time and cannot guarantee we'll buy the later ones.
What is comes down to is that if we get enough interest, we'll go for it and hope that it draws enough people in. As you can see, the costs are not small. But the project remains feasible. 500 people is not a lot.
BUT the onus is on all of you to drag that support here. We've reached out to you. That's really all we can do. Now you need to reach out to your friends and get them to reach out to theirs.
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Have you started a donation fund yet? I think this would be the best indicator of the feasibility of this idea - get the interested parties to put their money where their mouths are. Obviously you won't be able to promise anything, so set a cut-off date - say, one year from the start of the donation drive - where everyone who's donated would be refunded. I know that there are always costs involved with online money transfers, but AFAIK, refunding a PayPal receipt doesn't cost anything.
Start with a basic donation of £1 and invite people to contribute more if they can. Then if the donation amount is enough to secure the rights to a single episode, put it up for download at a price of around £2 or £2.50, with an offer to halve the price for those who have donated. With luck, the profit from the sale will be enough to secure the next episode. Of course, it's going to be a lot harder than that, but there are plenty of business models you could use.
Also, a bigger link on the main site would be a great marketing tool...
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Fixed.
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