Network Is Down

Continuing the focus on old television, it’s been a sad week, as Network Distributing’s website went offline on Tuesday and although there’s no official news, it appears the company is either in administration or liquidation. It’s terrible news for physical video media in the UK in general, as Network seemed to be one of the last ‘giants’ standing the market, pushing out a lot of titles each year, but it’s even worse for people that are interested in the more esoteric fare that they put out. Sure, they had plenty of crowd-pleasers like the restored Prisoner blu-rays or the astoundingly complete Monty Python boxset from a couple of years ago. But they were also the company that would put out a children’s TV serial from 1974 that may have only aired in the Yorkshire TV region and that half the cast have forgotten they even made it. And they’d produce that release with a similar amount of care as they would the Python set. A company that was fully prepared to release a 13-disc set of Give Us A Clue and the complete insanity of the recent 90+disc Crossroads set. They were legends and will be sorely missed.

(As part of the hordes descending upon retailers in an attempt to get hold of things before they sell out forever, I got hold of the complete series of Watching. Which I would never claim is brilliant, but I have good memories of watching it both at home on broadcast and in Santa Monica ten years ago. And who is going to be crazy enough to do a repress of this series? I’m not even sure if it’s even online in the UK…)

In happier news, it looks like I will be in San Francisco for the first time in over three years this coming August! I’ll be going to the Google Cloud Next conference in the centre of town, and hope to meet up with a bunch of people I haven’t seen in person for a while. I feel like I’m already regretting the red-eye back home on Thursday night, mind you; I didn’t realize the conference ended at 2pm…but given the time difference, it looks like I wouldn’t get home any quicker anyhow. Still, should hopefully be fun…and I’ll get to see the new offices for the second time in three and a half years…