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Free DVDs in your broadsheets...

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:40 / 28.06.06

I was gobsmacked when visiting my sister in London last October and saw free movies being given away in a couple of different weekend broadsheets. We have nothing like that (to my knowledge) here in Canada, and I have to admit I'm jealous. The movies seem to be 10+ year-old affairs, and some awfully drab (it was some old Merchant-Ivory thing one of the weeks I was there), but at the same time... FREE MOVIES.

This often comes up in movie threads... people mention having seen a film as a broadsheet DVD fairly frequently. Is there some catch I'm unaware of? Or are you British living in a movie-watcher's hog heaven, with people almost-literally throwing the things at you as you mosey down Fleet Street?

Tryphena Absent

20:00 / 28.06.06

This article explains the motivation quite accurately. There is a theory that it's better to push your price down than offer promotions but that's more relevant to trade magazines and subscriptions than national newspapers. An offer like this promotes the production company, the distributor and the newspaper all at the same time though the paper pays for the DVD.

All Acting Regiment

20:13 / 28.06.06

Quite often the DVDs are given away in nasty tabloids and are the sort of thing you'd expect from such...

Mourne Kransky

20:15 / 28.06.06

Although, buying the Guardian / Observer as I would have anyway, I've had The Wicker Man and The Man Who Knew Too Much.

sleazenation

20:42 / 28.06.06

Plus The Guardian does have a film wing and an afiliation to channel four films...

Spaniel

21:04 / 28.06.06

A random selection of DVDs sitting on my shelf that were given away free by broadsheets

Dune
My Life as a Dog
The Last Emperor
Wings of Desire

Yep, I reckon we do alright.

Shrug

22:07 / 28.06.06

I've gotten Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and I know stuff like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "A Taste of Honey" has been given away previously. Not too bad really. Although sometimes the free c.ds appear not to make it to Ireland (which tends to piss me off more than a little).

sleazenation

22:19 / 28.06.06

In the UK The Wickerman and Don't Look Now were originally released in the cinema as a double bill. This year, both were given away fre in the Guardian...

The Falcon

23:14 / 28.06.06

I was a bit distressed about Dune, which came with the Independent on Sunday iirc, a paper which my newsagent typically stocks one copy of (certainly by the time I get there) and there was no bastard copy that week. I assume this is because someone wanted the - or indeed a - DVD, as I particularly did on this occasion, but that they would not normally have purchased the paper.

pear

06:33 / 29.06.06

Oh I wouldn't slate the tabloids too much - Rupert Murdoch gave me Highlander, Conan and The Bounty on DVD with the Sun.

sleazenation

08:24 / 29.06.06

Oh I'd still slate the tabloids, because they deserve a good slating. But The Sun did give away a load of free Dr Who DVDs...

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:12 / 29.06.06

And this, perhaps, is the downside. These offers encourage people to purchase newspapers based not on their content but on the clout of their marketing department.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

11:39 / 29.06.06

And the upside, too? If people who don't normally buy newspapers have these huge things just kind of sitting there on the table, they might try this "reading" business and discover that being informed is rather pleasant. Granted, if your tabloids are like our tabloids, it may not be information worth sharing, but at least familiarizing non-reader-types with newspapers isn't a bad thing.

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