Can't WB Home Video at least release the PILOT on video?

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: Can't WB Home Video at least release the PILOT on video?
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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+  1: Jul 12, 1996: markj at infocom.net (Mark Johnson)
+  3: Jul 15, 1996: smengrs at premier.net (Walt&Karen)
*  4: Jul 19, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: markj at infocom.net (Mark Johnson)
Lines: 28

In article <4r551a$q6a at dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>,
strueb at ix.netcom.com (Wesley Struebing) wrote:

>DWALKER at DCA.com (Dean Walker) wrote:
>
>>Re: Highlander, it could still be possible (I dunno - just trying desperately to
>>defend my position) that the videos were held back until the first-run of the
>>series in syndication was over.  Unless the first-run still isn't over, then
>>that's right out and I'm just plain wrong.
>
>>Wouldn't be the first time.
>
>>My wife tells me it surely won't be the last...   <sigh>
>
>Off topic, here, Dean,(not you - me...) but "Highlander is still in
>its "first run"  One more season, I believe, to go, and they've
>released S1 and S2 tapes...

>
>

I at least want to see the PILOT on video. I did not see it or it was not shown localy.

Better yet Put it on as a rerun





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From: smengrs at premier.net (Walt&Karen)
Lines: 44

markj at infocom.net (Mark Johnson) wrote:

>In article <4r551a$q6a at dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>,
>strueb at ix.netcom.com (Wesley Struebing) wrote:

>>DWALKER at DCA.com (Dean Walker) wrote:
>>
>>>Re: Highlander, it could still be possible (I dunno - just trying desperately to
>>>defend my position) that the videos were held back until the first-run of the
>>>series in syndication was over.  Unless the first-run still isn't over, then
>>>that's right out and I'm just plain wrong.
>>
>>>Wouldn't be the first time.
>>
>>>My wife tells me it surely won't be the last...   <sigh>
>>
>>Off topic, here, Dean,(not you - me...) but "Highlander is still in
>>its "first run"  One more season, I believe, to go, and they've
>>released S1 and S2 tapes...

>>
>>

>I at least want to see the PILOT on video. I did not see it or it was not shown localy.

>Better yet Put it on as a rerun

the pilot was released on video disc in Japan. It is available as
special order from some of the larger video disc dealers such as Ken
Crane's



------------------------------------------
<*> "The avalanche has already started. Its too late for the pebbles to vote" 
--Ambassador Kosh, Babylon 5

Walter S. & Karen M.
S&M Video Productions
S&M Engineers
71625.1162 at Compuserve.com
http://www.premier.net/~smengrs



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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 39

The videotape situation has absolutely *zip* to do with the Turner
situation.  We got a reading on this from WB long, long before the Turner
deal was even a glimmer in Wall Street's eye.  Basically, it's an in-house
problem.  Most of the studios have a philosophy of, "If someone's going to
do something with one of our shows, we should do it through an internal
branch of the company."  But if they themselves don't want to do it, they
tend to hold onto it even if someone else wants to do it NOW on the theory
that they themselves MIGHT want to do it in future.  

It's a territorial thing.  We have the right to do this, and we won't
surrender that right, because our division refuses to lose that control,
whether we actually ever do the project or not.

This is, remember, a business where people running studios pay vast
amounts of money for things they know they'll never do.  It's always less
about money than about pride, jurisdiction and control.

In our case, "proper channels" for B5 would be Warner Home Video.  Unlike
Fox and Paramount, WHB doesn't generally release TV series on video.  They
tend to look more to big-deal movies, documentaries and miniseries.  And
they tend to do the big-ticket items that they know will sell millions of
copies (like the Batman movie, and some of the animation stuff, which has
a different agenda).  They look at a syndicted show, and shrug.  

Warners International, on the other hand, is by their mandate set up to
handle the release of whole series on tape, and that aspect wasn't a
problem in the UK.

So we've been negotiating with them for almost 2 years now to do the
videos ourselves.  There's been some movement, gradually, but it's been
the kind of movement associated with glaciers.  Eventually we'll get
there; we just have to keep saying "yes you will" one more time than they
can say "no we won't."


 jms



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