The continuing decline in availability of physical media

[The_Arbiter]

Because there are legal, contractual and regulatory issues with doing so.

I think i've read similar reasoning before in another thread. But BBC have money, and because i think they provide a lesser service now, i consequently don't give them money.

Upon a quick search i read that there was an archive available, and an educational archive is still available. The educational one hides horizon for example, which i'd be interested in having full unrestricted access to, but the consumer is not allowed, educational services only. The BBC archive (2015 - 2017) i never even heard of, so their advertising was pretty dire there. A service where you would buy episodes of old shows etc, but again just seems daft to lock it behind a single purchases and not offer it to subscribers.

BBC are obviously happy with their current model, but i'm not. I don't piracy currently, but i also don't subscribe to media, so my wallet is up for grabs.

Talking of piracy, like Sony have tried, i bet many corporates want buying second hand media to be illegal or stopped. So my attitude to these big companies (not those small ones like you exampled) that run at a profit or continued growth have zero of my understanding when it comes to 'but licencing costs monies'.

intrigued - what stuff, most of it is shown regularly on the likes of gold or Drama - otherwise not sure there is an enormous catalogue that would appeal -
things like singing detective, boys blackstuff, house of cards, smiley, life on mars ... all look very dated.

Can't say i have specifics until reminded of such, as mentioned before, Fred Dibnah. I'm sure there's some gold buried about too.

 

[Cosimo]

A colleague of mine still likes to collect Vinyl and building up his catalogue again.

The vinyl market is alive and kicking. I still buy vinyl. The CDs we buy go on a music server/streamer and are kept for backup.

 

[Werewolf]

I think i've read similar reasoning before in another thread. But BBC have money, and because i think they provide a lesser service now, i consequently don't give them money.

Upon a quick search i read that there was an archive available, and an educational archive is still available. The educational one hides horizon for example, which i'd be interested in having full unrestricted access to, but the consumer is not allowed, educational services only. The BBC archive (2015 - 2017) i never even heard of, so their advertising was pretty dire there. A service where you would buy episodes of old shows etc, but again just seems daft to lock it behind a single purchases and not offer it to subscribers.

BBC are obviously happy with their current model, but i'm not. I don't piracy currently, but i also don't subscribe to media, so my wallet is up for grabs.

Talking of piracy, like Sony have tried, i bet many corporates want buying second hand media to be illegal or stopped. So my attitude to these big companies (not those small ones like you exampled) that run at a profit or continued growth have zero of my understanding when it comes to 'but licencing costs monies'.



Can't say i have specifics until reminded of such, as mentioned before, Fred Dibnah. I'm sure there's some gold buried about too.

The BBC has nowhere near enough money to provide new content and cover all the costs of making the full archive available, and at various times when they've tried to increase the availability or get permission they've been told no by the regulators even when they had plans to fund it without it affecting their other obligations and new content.

And yes they have an educational archive that is far bigger and open to people with an academic interest, because for limited academic use they don't have to get permission from everyone, and they don't have to pay the rights holders unlike "commercial" usage which includes broadcast, because there are specific exemptions for that extremely limited use.
In much the same way the British Library and the BFI both have vast archives of stuff that they can't make available to the wider public in general, but if you apply for you can access in a controlled environment if you meet the right requirements (such as academic research).

Just because there is an archive doesn't mean that the people who run it have the legal rights and clearances required to make it's contents available to the public. Even just getting permission to use a clip in another show or film can be costly and hard to arrange (one of the reasons a lot of film/tv shown in fim/tv is either made specifically for it, public domain, or the then current rights are owned by the company making the program they're used in).