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Tuesday 12 July 2016

A demand for Corrie DVDs

I've been absent on the blog for an awfully long time, and for a number of reasons. Not only have I had perhaps some of the most stressful months of my life but I've also sat through 300 episodes of Australian soap Neighbours, starting from the very beginning on 18th March 1985, right through to 18th July 1986. How time has flown - and the only thing stopping me from watching anymore is that my wifi is down, and the shabby quality of YouTube episodes. Luckily, most of those that I have already watched were in HQ, due to a fantastic release of 5 volumes of DVDs titled 'From the Beginning'.


From here, and mainly because of the lack of wifi, I moved onto the DVD releases of Emmerdale Farm, which have also been released from the very beginning, covering 5 volumes. The release of Emmerdale got me thinking - why haven't Network released Coronation Street on DVD from the beginning?

The first thing I wondered was whether there was too much of a lack of demand, though following a Twitter poll I created I realised that this was not the case. From the 145 people who voted, 56% (roughly 81 people) said that they would purchase volumes of Coronation Street on DVD 'From the Beginning...' if they were made available. Now don't get me wrong, I personally don't know how it would be logistically possible to do so without charging a great deal per set or without there being hundreds of volumes - after all, there are 8942 episodes.

In some ways I am biased towards the 44% (roughly 63 people) who voted to not purchase Corrie DVDs. I know that I definitely wouldn't have the time or the money to buy each set though if they had been released I probably would try to purchase them.



I'm not sure what the sales for the other Corrie DVD releases have been, though regardless, I would definitely like to see Network consider releasing early episodes. What do you think?

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11 comments:

John McE said...

Well, Network followed up the 60s, 10 DVD set with ones for the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s... so sales can't have been too shabby, can they?

And they also released numerous volumes of Crossroads on DVD, until they got greedy and started released them too quickly for fans to keep up, and sales declined.

So why not release a complete 1961 set to begin with and see how many it sells? And if they think people won't buy black & white episodes, maybe release a complete 1970 set a few months later.

Network have released some incredibly obscure, long-forgotten series on DVD, so I can't believe they wouldn't jump at the chance of released vintage Corrie, if only ITV would let them.

A few months ago Network announced they had secured a new, long-term deal with ITV to release more of their shows, so let's hope Corrie is given the green light.

The only problem I see is that, faced with 6 new episodes a week from next year, personally I'd far rather work my through the series from the beginning, full of wonderful, well written characters that are still household names to this day, than the current crop of characters, most of whom I struggle to remember the names of.

John from Corriepedia said...

Agree with John - release a complete year and see how it goes.

fairycake said...

I would be over the moon to own the entire series from the beginning! Especially the Black and white episodes! I have VERY SLOWLY been collecting episodes which I found available from April, 1976 through March, 2001 with bits and pieces of 2002 and 2003. Those have been incredibly hard to get...and I only need up to 27 June 2003, which is the exact date that I started collecting the episodes myself.
I know that we all have either seen or own the very first episodes which have been released, but I am certain I am not the only collector out there who would appreciate owning ALL of the episodes. I know that even with all of those I have, many may be missing, but at least I know a whole lot more, I feel, about current characters who are still in the programme and their histories. I have also been able to put a face to the name of some characters which I had only read about. It would be wonderful to see the many characters and episodes I have not seen....like Trisha Hopkins and her family, for example, and their entire time on the street.
Any road, sorry for being so long winded. I just adore Corrie and hope one day that dvd sets will be released of everything...not just a few from each year/era!
Cheers and blessings to all everafter
X

fairycake said...

PS...Let's not forget that in the beginning years the programme was only on twice weekly, so that would surely help in being able to collect those early years even quicker.
Hey, I own the entire 5 year DARK SHADOWS series as well as many others so I am no stranger to investing in items such as these...
Ta once again!
X

David said...

From-the-beginning 10-disc sets, 8 episodes per disc just like the sets they've already put out would be my ideal scenario (9 episodes per disc when they get to the mid-90s and episodes start getting shorter).

Yes, that would amount to a lot if they continued until the present day, but I expect most fans are mainly interested in the rare 1960-76 period which were never repeated by Granada Plus, and they could cover that era in 20 boxsets. Though as Granada Plus trimmed their episodes by a few minutes (even cutting out the entirety of Jack Howarth's last two appearances!), the following years would still be essential purchases to get the complete episodes. I would buy them all, of course!

TBH, the only way of seeing a complete run is if ITV offers them for streaming or download. For this collection to be worthwhile Network would have to have started releasing the sets years ago.

70sStreetFan said...

I would love nothing more,but can't see it happening sadly. Network seem to have cut back on their archive TV releases very significantly over the last few years. It's About 11 years since they released the first collection- the 1970s Box Set. Since then we've had no more episodes from that decade,apart from a handful on other sets like the Soap Box DVD. The Corrie Network sets are great collections,but leave the dedicated fan wanting to see all the other episodes. And probably leave the more casual fan a bit bemused- as they often won't know what happened before or next in the story. Interestingly,other soaps with a huge number of episodes have had success on DVD. All the episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H- nearly 700 fifty minute episodes have been released in the UK. Another Australian show The Sullivans has already released the first 1000 episodes on DVD in Australia. And the aforementioned Dark Shadows,a vintage American gothic soap,has been released in it's entirety- about 1250 episodes. I do think it a pity that something similar wasn't attempted with 60s and 70s Coronation Street during the heyday of DVD,by Network- a company which has specialised in archive television. Perhaps the fact that the 1960s episodes were in black and white made it an uncommercial proposition? Or that the earliest colour episodes were from a period of the show which isn't as highly regarded as the mid 70s period onwards? But,it does seem a great pity,that 20 years on from the first Granada Plus repeats,that there doesn't seem to be any place for earlier episodes on TV either. But,that's yet another subject I suppose...

bbhilda said...

Personally, I would much rather they made all episodes available online, especially with a search index to find certain scenes in each episode. I would be very willing to pay an annual subscription for it. My only beef with the videos put out so far has been that you just got into the story, and the next episode wasn't available.

Now I know an online service wouldn't satisfy the collectors, but it sure would help me in research for my website! LOL!

Anonymous said...

I would love it if more classic episodes were released on DVD,all these brilliant stories and Characters should be available for people of all ages to enjoy. I have all the Corrie DVDS from Network, from the 60s-00s , It would be nice to have episodes that follow on from each other too. I also don't know why they don't release something in time from Christmas, my idea would be 'Coronation Street at Christmas' every Christmas /new year/festive episodes from 1960 to last year. I am sure that would be a cracking Christmas gift for many , what do you think??

Anonymous said...

and ITV3 OR A Simliar channel should repeat Coronation Street and Emmerdale like Granada Plus did 20 years ago, but this time start from the beginning and not from 1976 !

Martyn said...

Logistically, DVDs would never work, there'd be too many of them. Does anybody remember earlier this year when they did the April Fools advert pretending they were releasing every episode on DVD? Did you see the comment section? FULL of people saying they wished it were true - I do think there's demand out there. Auntie Corrie used to fill this void for me, but YouTube are nasty and deleted the channel :(

I think the two most realistic ways this could happen is
1) Online - either with a 'rent an episode' model or a monthly subscription
2) Repeating the series from the beginning on a channel like ITV3 - they do this with a lot of shows, so it seems weird to me that they haven't done this with Corrie like they did on Granada Plus back in the day

Kylie O'Reilly said...

Release it as a monthly collectible magazine with a months worth of vintage episodes on a memory card and lots of backstage gossip and pics from that month - costs a lot more to buy it but people would be looking forward to watching the next month at their leisure haha

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