Tone wrote:Oh, sorry, I thought he was suggesting it was rights issues that caused it. So the TP adventures sold well? Okay, well, that's good to hear, as I say I am a big fan of the series and so I'm glad to hear it was popular. Well, then, that makes it even more of a pity that it's been discontinued for whatever reason.
Still, if sales were good then all involved can at least take some solace from the fact that what they produced was well-recieved. I'd imagine it'd be frustrating, though, to have a popular product and yet not be able to continue making it.
Are the Sapphire and Steel audios going to be continuing? I've only heard one of them, so far, but I thought it was really quite good.
I took Imipak to mean rights issues related to lack of sales - i.e: Freemantle being disappointed with the amount being sold and taking the licence away as a result. And that wasn't the case. Freemantle did take the licence away, just not for those reasons.
It strikes me that if that did happen with audios of any series (be it anything in the BF stable, Who, S&S etc, or be it outside stuff like the Blake's 7 audios), it wouldn't be a permanent thing - because what's the point in taking the license back if you're not then going to sell it to someone else? You'd basically be exchanging a small amount of income for no income at all if you didn't.
Lack of sales is only likely to be a problem to BF themselves, if they can't justify the costs of making the audios. It's what happened to the 2000AD range, apparently, and it nearly happened to S&S (though thankfully it didn't!).
(Though I think it's a mistake to equate lesser sales with lesser quality anyway. If the audios don't sell as well as the DVDs, say, that shouldn't be taken to mean that the stories aren't 'strong enough' to compete, as Imipak suggested. It's simply that you're dealing with a niche market within a niche market. Obviously it won't sell as well. I imagine the Who audio Spare Parts hasn't sold as many copies as the DVD of Time Flight, but it would be difficult to state that this is because Spare Parts isn't strong enough a production to compete with it. In deed, as someone who liked the TP audios, I think they're easily stronger than the original TV show by a massive degree.)
Beyond series 3 of the audios I have no idea whether S&S will continue - I'm not in that loop. But it can't help to buy a few. I believe the second story of the new series is supposed to be excellent... ;)
