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Post by cperry on Aug 29, 2008 14:26:44 GMT
Hello
I thought I'd give this its own thread, it shouldn't be in the Goodbye to ABC thread.
In a nutshell, Callan, Public Eye and Armchair Theatre were made by ABC and then continued by Thames.
ABC and Thames merged so the format rights are owned by Thames ONLY. The tapes/film prints of theses series made by ABC have been retained by Canal+ so they own the tapes ONLY and NO COPYRIGHT.
Now this is where Fremantle and Canal+ fall out. To release the ABC eps Canal insist they are paid AND Fremantle insist they are paid AND THEY WANT THE ABC EPS BACK claiming they are held illegally by Canal+.
Now Canal+ hold the tapes/prints but they have NO PAPERWORK to own copyright so in effect they are holding the physical property but cannot license any copyright without being sued by both Equity, writers, producers etc and being sued by Fremantle (who own Thames).
Canal+ dispute all this of course and threats fly around lawyers.
So we have stalemate and so Fremantle can claim that series 1 is colour because that is their season 1. The earlier bw eps are disputed territory (many Thames eps have ABC time-clocks).
Ah, I hear you cry but Network released some ABC Public Eye eps. Yeh they did and it caused a storm of legal probs hence no more being seen since.
Anyway, there have been negotiations to resolve this situation for 2-3 years now so we hope it will be sorted soon, but for now it's still a difficult area for DVD companies.
I know one company has been trying very hard to mediate a good settlement so I hope they've succeeded and I'm out of date, lol.
Chris
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Post by Jeff Lewis on Aug 29, 2008 18:12:16 GMT
This looks like it could go on for years and if are any missing episodes from ABC discovered or held by private collectors there is no guarentee which company to contact. I pressume this is not an isolated case particulary as there are many old ITV companies that no longer excist has broadcasters since franchises changed in 1968 and later.
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Post by Koen Br on Aug 29, 2008 19:22:51 GMT
That's interesting. I'm sure we're all aware of the ABC/Thames/Canal+ situation, but I didn't know there was the additional problem of C+ holding the actual tapes and films. To make things worse, they don't sound like the kind of company that would preserve this material in the best possible way... I didn't know C+ was less than happy with Network releasing those two ABC eps either!
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Post by cperry on Aug 30, 2008 9:03:42 GMT
Actually Koen Br (is that really your name mate, Br?) :-) the material is stored at Pinewood in the most fantastic conditions possible. They have a better archive than most ITV companies when it comes to racking, ventilation and space so don't worry there.
c
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Post by Koen Br on Aug 30, 2008 15:19:25 GMT
Good to know the archive is in good condition. Did they ever get round to transferring tape material to a modern format, though? (Assuming there is any VT in an archive that ends in 1968, of course.)
The full name is... (drum roll) Braem, but somehow it looks weird being confronted with my own name every time I post something. A bit irrational, I know. :-) Have added the first two letters to comply with the new rules here, and will probably bring myself to change this to the sull name when I'm used to the idea.
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Post by cperry on Aug 30, 2008 16:01:06 GMT
Canal+ hold only film elements of their shows. All videotape was held at Teddington by Thames and destroyed in 1976. :-( Hence part of the argument because all of Callan and Public Eye was on 2" and held by Thames until that purging of bw VT.
It really is an accident of fate that Canal+ hold any ABC material, it was inherited from an old vault of Thorn EMI and they have no legal right to hold any of it, at least I never found any paperwork to say they owned the copyright and I spent a year in that vault 15 years ago looking for it! That's how complex the story gets lol.
Interestingly, Pathe which was part of the same Thorn EMI vault and then were sold-off held some Callan material but wouldn't tell us what it was because it was held unofficially and in secret. Now that is a tale to tell but you ring them up and they deny everything. I found out after a very good night drinking in the pub when someone let slip that they held some promo films of old ABC shows on 16mm neg but were meant to keep it a secret. 18 years later and they have never turned up, presumed either still there uncatalogued or long since hidden away in a private collection. The Callan one was viewed by a friend who said it was clips for use in trailers and some stuff shot of Ed Woodward talking to camera about the series.
All remaining ABC VT material is stored by the National Film Archive and they have transferred it all to digibeta now, as I understand it.
c
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Post by Andy Howells on Aug 30, 2008 20:48:10 GMT
I'm not so conversant with all this and am finding this thread quite interesting. How then has The Avengers managed to break through the barriers and get video and DVD releases and have a relatively higher survival rate than other ABC shows? Overseas sales perhaps?
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Post by Koen Br on Aug 30, 2008 22:52:02 GMT
I was thinking about The Avengers as well. Isn't that in a different situation though? The new prints of the VT episodes have this wobbly Weintraub ident at the end.
Anyway, Chris, thanks for the information. I vaguely remember reading about that fire at some point, but I didn't know it was a dedicated VT library, and I certainly didn't know it resulted in the loss of complete Callan and PE series!
I also seem to remember a story about Verity Lambert approving the wiping of some ABC VT when she was head of drama at Thames. Am I right there or have I my facts mixed up?
I'm also wondering whether C+ allow people to access 'their' ABC material, for example for clips in documentaries. I tried to determine whether all ABC stuff that's floating around (such as some Armchair Theatre's and the five ABC PE's) are from the BFI rather than from the C+ collection. However, the BFI website lists all PE'S and AT's (including all missing ones) so I had no luck there.
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Post by cperry on Aug 31, 2008 10:37:11 GMT
I'm confused Koen. What fire? I don't think I've ever mentioned a fire in any of my posts. I don't know of any fire that has affected ABC shows since 1986.
The ABC Vt library at Teddington was crushed on the orders of Verity Lambert who wanted the storage space. The Drama Dept held authority over the preservation or destruction of all drama shows made by ABC and Thames. The perceived view was who would want to see a load of old 405 line bw recordings again?
The Avengers was always made by ABC and never made by Thames. Also, it was made by independent production companies towards the end, so the format rights were never owned by Thames AND the film was not stored at Teddington so Thames never had physcial possession.
It has to be said though that despite Canal+ licensing it and releasing it I've never seen any real paperwork to say they owned it, it was inherited from Thorn EMi when it was bought by Weintraub.
In many, many cases possession is nine tenths of the law, Brian Sammes made money from selling Redifussion clips for years because he held the prints, but he was never the copyright holder.
When ATV licensed Sir Francis Drake to Network, they actually owned co-rights with ABC, but ABC (Canal+) never got paid. Canal+ has them all on neg as well in much better print quality lol.
I know that Patrick Macnee had to fight a long protracted legal battle to get paid for The Avengers when they were released on DVD and VHS because no one got any money at first. It was his efforts that made sure artistes would carry on being paid in the future.
c
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Post by cperry on Aug 31, 2008 10:38:09 GMT
pps our books give exact holdings for many shows like Callan and will tell you all the formats if you are keen to know.
c
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2008 11:42:57 GMT
Thanks a lot, Verity! Not a very enlightened or respectful attitude from someone who was a programme maker herself, to say the least.
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Post by Koen Br on Aug 31, 2008 12:47:38 GMT
Sorry Chris, must have read your post about the 1976 destruction so fast I imagined reading 'destroyed by a fire" when you didn't wrote that! It was Verity all along...
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Post by Andy Howells on Aug 31, 2008 13:18:18 GMT
Well the Verity Lambert connection is a bit of a revelation, but I do wonder how many tv execs or producers have damned theirs or other peoples work over the years to oblivion... just because they thought no-one would want to see it again. Mind you, the attitude to old tv was a lot different in the seventies than it is now, audiences hated repeats and liked black and white programming even less when they were forking out money for Colour Tv licenses...
Thanks for clearing up The Avengers query, on another one what officially exists and doesnt exist of Armchair Theatre? I purchased a dvd of three episodes off ebay last year which i assume were from a private collection, all good quality shows, buit do these reside in an archive anywhere or are they from a private collection i wonder, I imagine they are similar to 5 other dvds "doing the rounds"...
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Post by cperry on Aug 31, 2008 13:25:30 GMT
I shall defend Verity here.
A warehouseful of old 405 line videotape.
No union agreements in place to use any of it.
A modern colour 625 system producing tv that everyone wants to buy. NO ONE wanted to buy 405. Even overseas broadcasters wanted film prints.
It costs your department money to store this stuff. It's 1976, the economy is struggling with fuel and other pressures.
Why keep it? Crush the tape and use the money to make The Sweeney, because that's what they did.
Verity was acting on good advice from the archive.
Anglia kept all their old 405 VT and its all been transferred to 625 line digital formats. How much do we see now on DVD or telly? Very little. And they've had to store all that since the 1960s. That isn't economic sense. Great archiving, great people, but not economic sense.
Simply put, keeping archive telly is not economic, but I'm very glad that archives choose to do so, but it's not economic. Archives don't make money, a few shows make money but the vast majority never see daylight.
We love watching that old telly, we strive to see it again, but the majority of people in the UK are more interested in their mortgage rate. We are a tiny minority worldwide as I've said before. Verity was a realist that's all.
c
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2008 13:41:17 GMT
Well, Verity was just making a decision based on certain factors (i'd still say VERY unenlightened judgements though, as she was a creator herself). It was the system that was wrong though, whereby one person could consign a huge amount of the creative work of others to oblivion, giving future generations no chance to see it again. If the same rules were applied as viciously and ruthlessly to all creative media as they were to TV (such as cinema - which they thankfully were not), we would have nothing left of any of our popular culture. Thankfully things were changed soon after that but too late to save a lot of remarkable TV (and someone like Verity should have seen that). Although i'm sure many made such difficult decisions, she should have been one of those that argued the case for SAVING the material though. No one at all was looking at the broader picture.
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