As some of you know, a small group of us have been trying to obtain material from the BBC archives for a DVD release. The material in which we were principally interested comprised the "Jake Thackray And Songs" series from 1981(minus guests because of rights issues) and "The Camera and the Song" from 1973. Until late last week we had been preparing to ask subscribers to the various Jake lists for an indication of the level of interest so that we could finalise costs and plans; however there has been a significant setback and this is the level of licence fees required by the BBC.

In essence we initially received a quote for licensing the material which was based on their audio rates, not audio-visual rates. While the former were manageable, the Audio-visual rates are currently around £1000 per broadcast minute which puts the fee way out of our league. Licensing of BBC material is something which is now carried out at "commercial" rates by a contracted-out entity and the rates assume mass-market appeal rather than limited audience "fan" productions such as ours.

I should add that the misquote was a genuine error and misunderstanding on the part of the BBC executive with whom we were talking. He was appropriately apologetic.

And so we need to think about what we do now. The obvious response – high level complaint to the BBC - is as likely to cheese them off as produce results and needs to be handled quite carefully. I am personally not about to give up on the BBC material, but we need to think about how best to go about this. It is not clear, for example, whether the BBC might be prepared to rebroadcast some material on satellite/cable channels.

In the meantime other first class live Jake performances (audio and visual) have come to light which may be releasable from within our own resources.

The purpose of this post is to keep you advised of the position and to invite your thoughts either on the list or, if you prefer, by email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it


Thanks

Ian Burdon