ok, well im glad everyone with challenge gets to enjoy knightmare before an official DVD release while everyone else doesnt.
the fact they you're ALL taping the episodes has just as much an effect on the DVD market as them being online infact more so since illegal tape trading is the reason they haven't been reeased before now. but if we can't all be tarred with the same brush i suggest consulting leggy as too either removing them or keeping the advertising Quiet in future.
Oh yes,
Challenge? showing the episodes definitely may have some negative effect on the amount of people who'd want to buy a DVD. However, while I sympathise with this line of argument- I for one have thought long and hard about whether getting
Challenge? to show it is good with respect to the chances of long term distribution- I maintain that there are subtle differences between this and the piracy example:
The first is that the showings on
Challenge? may directly inform Granada of the show's popularity among viewers, not just among hard-core "fans". Even if they don't know the exact figures, the fact that a fairly major satellite channel chooses to put it on in a primish slot may say more with respect to a potential market than our "We'd all buy a DVD" pleas. The quiet behind the scenes trading just doesn't give such a direct indication of the potential market.
Secondly, with respect to
Challenge?, it's less of a zero-sum game. With them showing it, more people are tuning in and getting interested in the show than would otherwise be the case. People who'd forgotten about its existence are now interested again, a lot of them have visited this website, and several of them are now actively campaigning for a DVD release. So although the
Challenge? showings may indeed satiate some people's desire, it creates or discovers a greater market than would otherwise be possible. That's not really the case with the unofficial copies/downloads- most people who find and use those were interested beforehand.
Although I'm not suggesting this is exactly what you mean or intend, I'd like to say something about the possible "Well, it's okay for people who get
Challenge?, to criticise the illegal copies, isn't it?" argument. While there may be some hypocrites out there, most if not all of the people here who are arguing against the illegal copies have worked extremely hard to get this programme shown on
any legal format, whether they have access to it or not. Even those of us who get
Challenge? have spent a great deal of time trying to get a DVD release that anyone with the appropriate equipment could enjoy, or for FTN- a free to air channel- to show it. I'm sure we'll continue to do so, too.
"Sometimes of the Grey, but always of the Green, dearie. Shurrup Brollachan! Have you seen Festus, my dear? I need to take him back to Cornwall. " [cackle]
