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Only within the past few months, really:

Q1 2013: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/...

Q1 2015: http://variety.com/2015/tv/fea...

I was wondering how much longer Stewart would stick around after Colbert's departure though. It's not the same without Colbert as the follow-on, and I haven't bothered to watch the replacement.

The BBC has co-production and distribution agreements with companies all over the world. That translates directly into bigger budgets, production on locations abroad, recruitment of A-list talents, and so on.

Brighton, England--February 22, 2010-- MASTERPIECE on PBS and BBC Worldwide Sales and Distribution, Americas have announced a major co-production deal that includes a new production, with the BBC, of Upstairs Downstairs--one of the most-loved and honored television series of all time. Upstairs Downstairs will air in the U.S. in 2011 as part of MASTERPIECE 's 40th anniversary season on PBS.

The deal also includes Sherlock, a 21st-century spin on Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes novels, and three Aurelio Zen mysteries, adapted from the best-selling novels by Michael Dibden set in Italy.

Jean Marsh, who will reprise her role in the new three-part series as Rose, the parlor maid. Dame Eileen Atkins, the co-creator of the original program, will also star. Screenwriter Heidi Thomas (Cranford) is setting the new Upstairs Downstairs in the same house at 165 Eaton Place in 1936, during the period leading up to World War II.

The thrilling new Sherlock series is a fast-paced, witty take on the legendary crime drama, now set in present day London and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Last Enemy) as the eponymous detective. Martin Freeman (The Office UK, Hot Fuzz) plays his loyal friend, Doctor John Watson, and Rupert Graves (God on Trial, The Forsyte Saga) is Inspector Lestrade. Co-created by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Coupling, Jekyll) and Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Crooked House), the iconic details from Arthur Conan Doyle's original books remain: same address, same names--and somewhere out there, Moriarty is waiting.

Rufus Sewell (The Eleventh Hour, Middlemarch, John Adams) will star as Italian detective Aurelio Zen in three episodes based on the popular mysteries by Michael Dibden. The series is being shot on location in Italy by Left Bank Pictures, the production company behind the acclaimed Wallander television series.

MASTERPIECE AND BBC WORLDWIDE ANNOUNCE DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS, INCLUDING NEW UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS

These are actually straight to DVD/TV films, see: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?date=01/15 /07&id=20070115mgm01

Yeah, I hate the fact that they just put what's on and not what's new too... So to find out what's new, I check out this section on The Futon Critic. I miss TVTome. It was simple and clean, and yet, it provided everything I needed.

Man - I hate it when I forget to preview. And i wish I didnt have to put in [br]'s and it would just listen to my carriage returns.

Here is my post correctly formatted.

It's hard to come by accurate sales figures but here are some at:
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/newswire.cgi?id= 5806
In a recent report, Daily Variety has obtained sales figures for the most popular TV-related DVD sets. The results are surprising, as at least six boxed sets have topped one million copies sold:
"The Simpsons: The Complete First Season" - 1.6 million
"Band of Brothers" - 1.4 million
"The Sopranos: The Complete First Season" - 1.3 million
"Friends: The Complete First Season" - 1.3 million
"The Simpsons: The Complete Second Season" - 1.25 million
"Sex and the City: The Complete First Season" - 1.1 million

The results are surprising considering many items on the list retail between $75-$150. That means HBO has pocketed in the neighborhood of $97-$195 for the first season of "The Sopranos" alone.

You say.. That 'ten bucks' isn't your revenue. I think I laid out some of the major costs in my post. I wasn't assuming it wasn't revenue in the first place. It's reasonable to assume that where you had to pay taxes, that would be on top of the $10. In the States, you usually don't have to pay taxes if you do not have a physical location in that state.

Where do you get your numbers for costs from?
Purely conjecture. I do know what starts make when a series starts (usually about 50-60k if they are an unknown) and when a series is successful (a million an episode per star for friends).
But costs depend on supply and demand. Actors wave their salaries for some projects. Unions make things so costly that series get filmed non-union. There are probably a lot of decent actors out there who would be glad to find work for 10,000 an episode for 5 episodes. No- not jennifer aniston's or brad pitts- but that's a false choice.
Plus- costs tend to rise towards revenues. Star trek doesn't -have- to cost as much as it does. The more a show makes- the more everyone working on it wants. Unions lock in high base prices which make it hard to start a show cheap.

It's part of why actors used to make 6-9 films a year and now they only make a film every 2-3 years. Watch the old Boston Blackies and you will find good acting, good writing, and they made them much less expensively without credits that ran for 15 minutes at the end. India makes almost a thousand films a year which they show (presumably at a profit since they keep making them) to an audience who can probably pay 10 to 25 cents to see them. Modern movies and television are artificially expensive to make-- too many hands in the til.

So out of your $8.25 per DVD, you need $6 of that going to the studio.

Okay- consider the article and read my post again. There IS NO STUDIO. There is NO $6 going to a studio.

Making TV shows ALWAYS requires overhead. How do you distribute your DVDs?

Direct distribution to the end customer by mail or electronic image (like magnatune who I have purchased music from). Amazon only comes into the picture after the show becomes popular enough. TV does not ALWAYS require overhead. It only requires overhead if you are broadcasting it on TV. The folks making Star Wreck are making and distributing the movie without Amazon just fine.
I'm also assuming there is a lot of money to be made selling DVDs in 'brick and mortar' stores
That's true in the past- I'm still uncomfortable about making major purchases over the internet- but I'm up to about $200 items and I get more used to it every day. The stuff arrives- I don't have to waste time or gas going to stores that don't carry the items I want (which happens more and more as time goes on- stores selection compared to what is ava

It's hard to come by accurate sales figures but here are some at:
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/newswire.cgi?id= 5806
In a recent report, Daily Variety has obtained sales figures for the most popular TV-related DVD sets. The results are surprising, as at least six boxed sets have topped one million copies sold: "The Simpsons: The Complete First Season" - 1.6 million "Band of Brothers" - 1.4 million "The Sopranos: The Complete First Season" - 1.3 million "Friends: The Complete First Season" - 1.3 million "The Simpsons: The Complete Second Season" - 1.25 million "Sex and the City: The Complete First Season" - 1.1 million The results are surprising considering many items on the list retail between $75-$150. That means HBO has pocketed in the neighborhood of $97-$195 for the first season of "The Sopranos" alone. You say.. That 'ten bucks' isn't your revenue. I think I laid out some of the major costs in my post. I wasn't assuming it wasn't revenue in the first place. It's reasonable to assume that where you had to pay taxes, that would be on top of the $10. In the States, you usually don't have to pay taxes if you do not have a physical location in that state.
Where do you get your numbers for costs from?
Purely conjecture. I do know what starts make when a series starts (usually about 50-60k if they are an unknown) and when a series is successful (a million an episode per star for friends).
But costs depend on supply and demand. Actors wave their salaries for some projects. Unions make things so costly that series get filmed non-union. There are probably a lot of decent actors out there who would be glad to find work for 10,000 an episode for 5 episodes. No- not jennifer aniston's or brad pitts- but that's a false choice.
Plus- costs tend to rise towards revenues. Star trek doesn't -have- to cost as much as it does. The more a show makes- the more everyone working on it wants. Unions lock in high base prices which make it hard to start a show cheap.
It's part of why actors used to make 6-9 films a year and now they only make a film every 2-3 years. Watch the old Boston Blackies and you will find good acting, good writing, and they made them much less expensively without credits that ran for 15 minutes at the end. India makes almost a thousand films a year which they show (presumably at a profit since they keep making them) to an audience who can probably pay 10 to 25 cents to see them. Modern movies and television are artificially expensive to make-- too many hands in the til.
So out of your $8.25 per DVD, you need $6 of that going to the studio.
Okay- consider the article and read my post again. There IS NO STUDIO. There is NO $6 going to a studio.
Making TV shows ALWAYS requires overhead. How do you distribute your DVDs?
Direct distribution to the end customer by mail or electronic image (like magnatune who I have purchased music from). Amazon only comes into the picture after the show becomes popular enough. TV does not ALWAYS require overhead. It only requires overhead if you are broadcasting it on TV. The folks making Star Wreck are making and distributing the movie without Amazon just fine.
I'm also assuming there is a lot of money to be made selling DVDs in 'brick and mortar' stores
That's true in the past- I'm still uncomfortable about making major purchases over the internet- but I'm up to about $200 items and I get more used to it every day. The stuff arrives- I don't have to waste time or gas going to stores that don't carry the items I want (which happens more and more as time goes on- stores selection compared to what is available to buy on the internet sucks- Circuit City.com carries items that Circuit City stores do not carry).
Yeah you could use bittorrent, but then a lot of these people who use bittorrent think that 'information wants to be free', and that copyright law is evil a

Lies, lies, lies. In the fourth season, ENT averages around 2.9m viewers... (source: USA Today (ooh, pie charts..)) BSG has been consistently matching or beating ENT, particularly in desirable demographics. ENT should be crushing BSG, considering SciFi is a cable network with less market penetration than a broadcast network like You Pee Enn.

Not NBC, SciFi, and not a rumor. http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

Yes, NBC

I was shocked. Apparently getting getting Approximately 4.48 million (Firefly), or 5.17 million (Futurama) or even 5.96 million people (John Doe) to watch a show on average is grounds to take it off the air because it's a failure.

I don't know about you, but I sure am impressed by anything which can get even a couple of million people interested in it.

You'd think *someone* could come up with a business model to continue to produce these shows.

I was shocked. Apparently getting getting Approximately 4.48 million (Firefly), or 5.17 million (Futurama) or even 5.96 million people (John Doe) to watch a show on average is grounds to take it off the air because it's a failure.

I don't know about you, but I sure am impressed by anything which can get even a couple of million people interested in it.

You'd think *someone* could come up with a business model to continue to produce these shows.

I was shocked. Apparently getting getting Approximately 4.48 million (Firefly), or 5.17 million (Futurama) or even 5.96 million people (John Doe) to watch a show on average is grounds to take it off the air because it's a failure.

I don't know about you, but I sure am impressed by anything which can get even a couple of million people interested in it.

You'd think *someone* could come up with a business model to continue to produce these shows.