[78-L] For old timey TV fans..slight 78RPM connection

[Elizabeth McLeod]

If a series was the product of an independent producer, the elements 
could end up anywhere -- a lot of film elements have turned up over the 
years abandoned in bonded film storage warehouses and film labs and such 
places. Once a company ceased to exist, its assets might also end up in 
someone's garage and eventually be set out on the curb for the junkman. 

Individual prints were often bandsawed after their distribution rounds 
were finished -- the whole reel was passed thru a bandsaw blade and 
tossed in the trash to keep anyone from illegally using it. Other prints 
might escape the bandsawing but might be sent off for silver reclamation 
or just tossed out -- which is how most prints held by collectors of TV 
shows got there.

Elizabeth


on 10/27/11 12:06 PM Jeff Sultanof wrote:

>I don't think anyone deliberately destroys negatives (vs. kinescopes),
>although there are exceptions. The master video tapes of the children's
>program "Winchell-Mahoney Time" were (supposedly) deliberately destroyed by
>Metromedia when Winchell sued them over syndication rights (although there
>are a couple of clips at You-Tube, so some may exist).
>
>For shows produced independently, the question often is: where are negatives
>stored? The website for "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" implies that there was
>some detective work to find the negatives.
>
>Jeff Sultanof
>
>On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Julian Vein
><julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:
>
>> On 27/10/11 16:16, Michael Biel wrote:
>> > From: Julian Vein<julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
>> >> Can anyone explain when a filmed, rather than live, series is sold to a
>> >> TV company, what happens to the film after the airing? Have the company
>> >> the rights to show it in perpetuity or do what they will with it?
>> >> Julian Vein
>> > ======================
>> >
>> > Syndication to local stations is usually paid on a per-episode basis for
>> > a time period of a year or two, and the station can play the episodes as
>> > many times as they want during that time period.  For example, if there
>> > are 100 episodes and a station pays $5000 per episode, they run those
>> > episodes and make their money by selling local ads which might only
>> > bring in $2000 each airing.  So they don't make money until the third
>> > airing on their station.  When the contract is up, the tapes of the
>> > films go back (nobody syndicates the actual films anymore).
>> >
>> > There are many other types of contracts (usually secret) but this is the
>> > general business model.
>> >
>> > Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> >
>> Thanks Mike. Does this mean that when the films go back to the
>> originator, they are kept by them? This would mean that they would end
>> up with a warehouse full of the stuff and I can't imagine them being
>> destroyed. This would seem to indicate that clean copies must still
>> exist somewhere.
>>
>>      Julian Vein
>> _______________________________________________
>> 78-L mailing list
>> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
>> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>>
>_______________________________________________
>78-L mailing list
>78-L at klickitat.78online.com
>http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>