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Topic: New to the hobby- questions about what's out there?
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Rich Malmsten
Film Handler
Posts: 41
From: White Bear Lake, MN, USA
Registered: Feb 2017
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posted December 24, 2017 02:55 PM
Hi Donald, with exception of mass produced prints for sale to consumers by companies like Blackhawk and Castle, you'll find the 16mm market to be very wide but not very deep. Almost everything ever telecast on TV is available on 16mm: movies, TV shows, and more, it's all there. Say you want an episode of MASH: there's almost always at least one for sale on eBay. But if you want a particular episode, you could wait a very long time for that one special episode to be for sale (if ever). Then if you're fussy about the color quality, you could wait for a long, long time indeed (or maybe you'll find it tomorrow). Sometimes it's just a matter of luck.
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Rich Malmsten
Film Handler
Posts: 41
From: White Bear Lake, MN, USA
Registered: Feb 2017
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posted December 25, 2017 01:30 PM
Donald, you were wondering how many prints might have be struck of any particular TV episode to meet the needs of syndication. Here's my ball park swag and I'm going to assume the show was popular enough to be widely syndicated; a less popular show would have even fewer prints struck. This is the pre-cable TV days when film was used to broadcast the shows.
In the U.S. there are (in round numbers) 200 television markets, so if every market had a station that contracted to broadcast reruns of a show, say Star Trek, (and only 1 station was allowed per market) the studio would strike 200 prints of each episode, one for each station/market. A typical syndication contract is 5 years. After 5 years a new contract is signed and new prints provided.
So even for a highly syndicated show, an average of only 40 prints per year of each episode would be struck. To me, that's not many. Even if the show was popular for 20 years, that's only 400 prints (of each episode) that were ever struck - ever. Then subtract those destroyed for whatever reason, and the number of existing prints becomes very small.
And you say you want a print without scratches on low fade stick? That number has to be very small. That's why it can take years for your favorite episode to come up for sale. The studios were printing just a small number compared to those mass produced films Blackhawk sold.
That said, I have several TV episodes on low fade stock that I got for a good price on ebay. Patience and some luck are part of our hobby.
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