Re: Why are rights to movies/TV series split up to different distributors?

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> leo86 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >When the rights are sold, doesn't it make
> >more sense to buy all the rights at once rather than just the TV
> >series or movie?
>
> It's hard to ask for the license of a movie that doesn't exist, or
> it isn't worth the risk of paying the additional licensing fee for
> a movie that may not ever be conceived.  I suspect most license fees
> are an accumulation of fees for each type of item (e.g. add video
> distribution + music distribution + theatric distribution + broadcast
> distribution + media type + ...).  During the transition from VHS to
> DVD, some companies had to renegotiate DVD distribution rights for
> some of their titles.  We're talking about a niche market here, so
> margins have to be watched.  After that, often the decision to even
> make a movie comes after, or at least too late for, the licensing of
> the TV series.  So the movies go up for bids as separate items, and
> nearly anything goes at that point.
>
IIRC, this question is asked many times, but the usual answer is that the
movie's rights are often held by a consortium rather than by one company and
are often negotiated in a separate deal from a TV series.  However, the
holder of a TV series license is often given the right of first refusal
(e.g., they are offered those rights first, before other companies are
allowed to bid).  Because a group of rights holders must grant the license,
it can be assumed that the cost of a movie license is much larger than that
for a TV series.

I remember hearing that Software Sculptors got a very good deal on the
license for the first 13 episodes of the Slayers TV series but had to pay
out the nose for the subsequent episodes after it became very popular in
Japan.  The Licensor simply demanded more money.   The Slayers movie and
OAV's may have been out of the reach of Software Sculptors and were refused
into the hands of ADV.  The same might have happened in the case of Ruroni
Kenshin and You're Under Arrest, where the holders of the TV series license
(Media Blasters and AnimEigo, respectively) refused the OAV's and Movies
because of the increased costs for those licenses.

David