Digital Digest: Shout! Acquires Timeless Media Group
Saturday, May 19, 2012
by Skees


Mergers have been happening everywhere in the home media business lately, and this week, Shout! Factory has announced a merger of their own with Timeless Media Group.

According to Variety, Shout! Factory has purchased the smaller distributor, known primarily for their releases of classic western series acquired from NBCUniversal (although they have released other series as well).

TMG will remain, at least for the foreseeable future, a separate entity from Shout! Factory and will continue to operate out of Oregon, but this acquisition opens the door for both distributors to better market the TMG releases and perhaps improve the quality of some of the TMG releases.

Honestly, there may be a lot of good to come out of this deal, as it demonstrates Shout! Factory has an ongoing commitment to release television series. We'll let you know what does come of it!

http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2012/05/digital-digest-shout-acquires-timeless.html

"...and perhaps improve the quality of some of the TMG releases..."

I heard NBCUniversal's deal with Timeless is like: "Go ahead, if you find 16mm prints of The Rogues, go release them. We're not going into our vaults to digitize the originals for you." Sort of like Timeless is a grayzone bootlegger being cut a deal on obscure material.

It would be nice if that changes, but Shout! Factory seems to have plenty of their own work to do, beyond padding their sister's company's budget for restoration. Seems more like a distribution angle...a mail order company or store can get tons of sets from both companies at the same time good quality or not.

While it would be nice to have seen better quality on "The Rogues" for example, at least it's back out there again at all.

...that series was produced by Four Star Television (co-stars David Niven and Charles Boyer were still partners in the company at the time)- and virtually all of the Four Star library is now controlled by 20th Century-Fox Television. THEY won't bother with 35mm negatives to release a pristine DVD collection, either.

:tv: