Miserable Git concludes

-----Original Message-----
From:]
Sent: 07 February 2006 09:05
To: boughrood
Subject: RE: OU resources

Hi Douglas
Yes they do seem expensive and it is precisly because we do not sell thousands of them. Most of the Open University videos are made for OU students to help them more fully understand a variety of different,often complex, subjects they are studying. In as many cases as possible OU Worldwide attempt to bring this expertise to the wider market, though obviously we are not always able to do this as sometimes the costs involved in clearing third party material is too expensive.
The videos we do clear for sale are targeted mainly at educational institutions to enable them to bring their teaching to life. In this role as a teaching tool they actually offer exceptional value as they can be used time and time again and are of a very high standard. As is the case in any programme made for theatre, tv or video the costs involved can be extremely high and as we don't sell through high street shops or launch our films through the cinema we are unable to benefit from the economies of scale of large production runs and box office sales, our market is much more limited and specialist. We do attempt to run promotions and discount older videos as much as possible so do please check our 'special offers' page.




Dear Jackie,
Thanks for the email. You say;
'Yes they do seem expensive and it is precisely because we do not sell thousands of them'.
I have never done economics but I do believe according to the latest theory that when demand is low the price drops and when demand is high the price increases - perhaps you can raise this with the committee that deals with policy they may find the results of this new research enlightening. As regards the costs of production; 1) Unless you actually sell any you wont recover any of these costs. 2) I am not interested in some over produced video that the OU is hoping to flog to this country or that, all I want is flares and a camera that barely moves. If the OU paid more than £500 for any one of the productions I am talking about they were overcharged and what is more the costs of production of these videos has already been recovered many times over by the students who paid fees to do the courses as I did. The only production costs to be recovered are the costs of producing copies and these days you cant buy a newspaper without a free DVD of 'Gone with the Wind'.
Anyway thanks but I will get the information I want free from the internet It is just that I rather liked the old style OU before it forgot why it was created.