Yes, I am the original "Leggy1210" that posted the weekly episodes way back when, as well as the other other Challenge TV clips.

I'm really surprised the Knightmare community hasn't yet come together to fund a DVD release of one of the most amazing cult TV shows!

What are we waiting for?!

Good to see you back here after so long. If you want any help getting access to your original account, which is still active, please let us know.

I'm sure you appreciate the irony of a former purveyor of unofficial downloads asking about an official release...

'The Knightmare community' is a vague concept that could mean anything from Knightmare.com forum regulars to anybody who likes, shares or posts about Knightmare online. This vagueness means that what most people are waiting for is somebody else to take an active role.

You may not be aware of the difficulty we had funding the Knightmare convention four years ago. We only needed to raise slightly over £12,000. Despite offering a unique experience and reaching thousands of potential crowdfunding donors on social media, only 280 donated to the campaign. These included some extremely generous four-figure donations, without which the convention could not have gone ahead.

Arguably the nostalgia bubble has burst, or at least shrunk. The Crystal Maze Experience crowdfunding campaign did well but the Fun House Live campaign raised only 9% of its goal last year. Knightmare Live's 2013 crowdfunding campaign beat its goal of £6000; its 2016 campaign, despite three years of good reviews and a lower goal, raised £2807.

The 'slacktive' interest in Knightmare DVDs will continue to exist. The active interest - people willing to put their hand in their pocket rather than their thumb on a Facebook post - is not enough to raise the sum we'd need.

If you enjoyed your return visit to the website and forum, Leggy, please feel free to stay and join in with other threads. Helping to keep Knightmare.com's life force green can only be good for Knightmare.

I'm really surprised the Knightmare community hasn't yet come together to fund a DVD release of one of the most amazing cult TV shows!

What are we waiting for?!

12k sounds a lot but if you think that money was raised for the convention there should be ways to make it happen. I have dreamt of a DVD release for years. Afraid I don't have that kind of money in my pocket but perhaps I will get lucky with the scratch cards he he!

we now have a target to aim for. Ideas at the ready one and all for how we can now achieve this goal of just £12,000.

How much is this release likely to cost and what ways other than Kickstarter can we potentially realistically achieve this?

16 episodes, including manufacturing costs and various overheads...probably in the region of 12k.

The GW episode may have been a bit poor but it didn't do what it should have done and that was a attract new fans and a new generation, people liked it but it didn't captivate them enough to want to see more.

Keep buying lotto tickets guys.. lol if I win a million i'll put up the cash.

Pity ITV 4 doesn't air it, they show lots of old repeats and could possibly promote it better than what challenge can. Km just needs to be found by new people and then it might have a chance as a resurrection, in one form or another.

It's never too late to remount a campaign but there needs to be more than just embers in the fire. £100 for 8 series plus potential extras is far from unreasonable at £12.50 a series which is at the going rate for most tv series. You'd be paying that even 2 episodes of classic Doctor Who plus extras say. The thing is to be focused, committed and positive throughout to achieve a successful campaign.

Let's start things rolling with the hypothetical release and take it from there.

I therefore propose a Knightmare 'start and ends' release namely the first and last episodes of each series. This takes inspiration from the Brookside release which also had 16 episodes over 2 discs. I would venture as extras a handful of commentaries - one with Tim and Hugo on the very first episode, one later on with Mark and Cliff and a few more with selected fans or, costs permitting, with additional cast members. These could by moderated by the likes or Alan or other forum staff. As well as that a full fan made documentary with contributions from as many community members as possible - David's scripting, Matt's camera work, Forester's programming etc.

How much is this release likely to cost and what ways other than Kickstarter can we potentially realistically achieve this?

On paper sounds brilliant and would love this. However unless we have a generous benefactor to provide the funds us with, we have loads of mountains to climb.

Let's start things rolling with the hypothetical release and take it from there.

I therefore propose a Knightmare 'start and ends' release namely the first and last episodes of each series. This takes inspiration from the Brookside release which also had 16 episodes over 2 discs. I would venture as extras a handful of commentaries - one with Tim and Hugo on the very first episode, one later on with Mark and Cliff and a few more with selected fans or, costs permitting, with additional cast members. These could by moderated by the likes or Alan or other forum staff. As well as that a full fan made documentary with contributions from as many community members as possible - David's scripting, Matt's camera work, Forester's programming etc.

How much is this release likely to cost and what ways other than Kickstarter can we potentially realistically achieve this?

I do get Alan's point though. However I feel the dvd thing should have happened when Knightmare was first shown on Challenge. That for me was when the interest peaked. I feel a percentage of people who watched KM first time around are no longer interested. That doesn't help matters in relation for a dvd boxset. I sadly feel it is too late now.

Now I'm not expecting the show to be on seven days a week, 24 hours a day, but even if that's all they were allowed, or had the rights to, (it's just) every time I would watch and the end credits rolled, I was left thinking "is that it" ?

Back to the DVD release thing, maybe one factor here is there just isn't enough interest to warrant or justify a release ? Point being, fans of Knightmare must be a very select few, or small group, that there is just isn't the interest for someone to put together a box-set or release of series for that aforementioned select group of fans to enjoy ? Mystara made the point that if a DVD selection were to become available to purchase and Challenge didn't feature their episodes as a direct result of it - then from a personal viewpoint I would see that as satisfactory.

Feel a bit selfish saying that as it's one viewers pleasure over another, but then wouldn't others (Knightmare enthusiasts) follow the same boat and simply get hold of their own copies to view whenever they like, instead of being dependant on one channels (often insufficient) viewing coverage ?

When Knightmare was first shown on Challenge, that would have been a better gauge for Angila to consider such a thing. Also I feel a lot more people still had an interest in Knightmare back then compared to today.

For example, had there been a bigger/more popular reception to Geek Week, Anglia would be more interested in releasing the DVDs themselves.

As another example, had the convention been more popular, I might be inclined to expend time and effort trying a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to put the DVDs out there. But since we struggled to raise 10k, I don't see there being a hope at raising 60k. Hence, I'm not prepared to spend my own time and money trying until I'm more convinced that there's likely to be some success.

There are also other complexities, like the episodes being illegally distributed. To some extent, it increases awareness of the show. Unfortunately, it dramatically reduces the chances of anyone buying the episodes.

There seems to be a lot of politics involved and it is a shame. It will come to a point where Challenge will not show Knightmare anymore. Look at Gamesmaster. When that day comes it will be a sad one.

For me I would love to see a DVD boxset but it just ain't gonna happen. The real loser will be us, the fans. Really hope to be proved wrong.

It's the sort a thing someone like Time Life might release, even on a limited run. But I doubt Km will ever made it onto dvd, we can dream and who knows.

For a physical DVD, you have to add the cost of redistribution and retail, as well as manufacturing the DVD, the box, etc. For an online episode, you need to add the cost of download, hosting, and credit card processing and (realistically) applying some kind of DRM in order to satisfy the rights holders.

Absolute minimum, you're looking at £500 per episode to break even. At £1 per episode, that's 500 sales of each and every episode needed to break even. A complete episodes set would be well over £100.

The fan base would be happy enough not having to turn a profit, but just don't have the kind of funds necessary to put something like that down.

The rightsholders need to turn a profit, and they just don't see there being enough profit.

Of course with most DVD's you have a bonus selection with cast interviews and hidden footage for example and all other associated material, so Yes, it's a big shame (and disappointment) that the series hasn't made it on to laser disc.

"Their standard submission costs, according to their website, are £22 submission fee, plus £2.75 per minute fee"

makes you think eh...

I suspect the problem lies in that convenient/lazy categorisation of the programme as a ‘gameshow’. Distributors don’t tend to be interested in home releases of so-called ‘unscripted’ shows that are largely ephemeral, have little artistic merit and don’t really reward repeated viewings. With a gameshow it’s all about the format and the latest contestants rather than specific episodes.

Now, we all know this doesn’t apply to KM but within the industry this gameshow label has probably stuck. KM therefore seems destined to share the fate of old episodes of Bullseye and Strike it Rich by being repeated on a nostalgia channel like Challenge. Not the worst case scenario but not really what the show deserves.