Criterion U.K.

[rapta]

Are Criterion UK folding already? Listings for Day For Night, Punch-Drunk Love and Dreams on Amazon are now saying "Currently unavailable". Be a huge shame if they're giving up so soon, and even more of a shame if they won't even bother releasing those last three (which are some of the strongest selections yet).

[JamesP1978]

Are Criterion UK folding already? Listings for Day For Night, Punch-Drunk Love and Dreams on Amazon are now saying "Currently unavailable". Be a huge shame if they're giving up so soon, and even more of a shame if they won't even bother releasing those last three (which are some of the strongest selections yet).

They seem to have disappeared altogether now. Doesn't look good. Seems my Criterion Collection is set to go unfulfilled!

[alacal2]

Well that would be odd given (according to a poster on the BluRay Forum) they've just started an advertising campaign in one of the UK's film magazines (Empire). Don't have sight of the magazine but it would be interesting to know what it says. I've been really disappointed so far with the quantity of releases (and pricing) and the apparent reluctance to dig deep into its back catalogue

[dwk]

The comapany doing Criterion's UK PR tweeted that "...there is a technical issue with Amazon & Criterion UK titles for December will be announced imminently!"

[rapta]

Yeah panic over, seems it was just a rumour based on a lack of information and communication. Criterion UK really should set up a Twitter account at the very least!

[dwk]

December titles (both on the 5th):

The Royal Tenenbaums
The Squid and the Whale

[TMDaines]

Criterion UK is shit. £17.99 for what should be readily available modern films for cheap. Zzzzzzz...

[MichaelB]

The pricing is in line with Criterion in the US, but drastically out of step with what you'd expect to pay for equivalent editions in the UK - I'd say they're at least a fiver too expensive when set against typical retail prices for BFI/Arrow/Eureka stuff.

Which I suppose is a sign of how much we've been spoiled when it comes to world-class boutique labels!

[RossyG]

If they were the same price as Arrow and co, I'd have about eight of them. But they're not, so I have one (Overlord).

[TMDaines]

If they were the same price as Arrow and co, I'd have about eight of them. But they're not, so I have one (It Happened One Night).

[tenia]

I don't care, I bought most of them years ago from the US...

[Minkin]

These all seem like rather silly complaints for this side of the Atlantic, especially considering that Arrow US titles are priced at $40 (which makes it cheaper to import from UK...). This still isn't overpriced, especially compared to Olive -which retails at $30, and have no extras, subs, don't do any transfer work, etc. And don't get me started on TT. And yet Criterion have held onto the $40 price since they started DVDs in the 90s, so its only become cheaper over time.

Criterion priced these when the pound was stronger and the exchange rate worked out to $40 US. They probably aren't too happy now that the pound has tanked even further. The MSRP doesn't seem dramatically higher than most other labels - like most Arrows retail at 25 quid (24.99). The complaints are then that Amazon UK are selling them for 18, but now you're just complaining about the lack of sales / Amazon's discounted price.

They're pricey in the US as well, hence we all wait for BN 50% off sales - and even then most of us use enough coupons to bring that down to $14 or so. So I'd perhaps expect some UK Criterion sale somewhere at some point. That said, it looks like some people at Blu-Ray.com's forums are managing to pickup UK titles for like 9 pounds or so at some retailer.

[MichaelB]

These all seem like rather silly complaints for this side of the Atlantic, especially considering that Arrow US titles are priced at $40 (which makes it cheaper to import from UK...). This still isn't overpriced, especially compared to Olive -which retails at $30, and have no extras, subs, don't do any transfer work, etc. And don't get me started on TT. And yet Criterion have held onto the $40 price since they started DVDs in the 90s, so its only become cheaper over time.

But that's the US market. This is the UK market, where the comparisons aren't with Olive or Twilight Time but with the likes of Arrow, the BFI, Eureka, Signal One and many others, whose releases are often at least as good as Criterion's, sometimes better and rarely significantly worse - and yet they typically sell for much less.

Mind you, given the way the pound is performing right now, even at Criterion UK's current prices you might be better off importing them to the US!

[TMDaines]

What MichaelB said... and who gives a damn about RRPs, especially in the UK where the pricing of titles in any successful store bares little regarding to their recommended RRP. I honestly could not tell you the RRP of any of MoC's, Arrow's, BFI's releases because it bares no relation to what I ultimately pick them up for.

In different countries, different products sell at different prices. Gelato is cheaper in Italy than here, beer is more expensive. While technology may be generally cheaper in the US than here, boutique home video tends to be cheaper.

[Minkin]

Arrow increased their price for/when they came to the US market. Plus I live in the US, hence my first remark was about the silliness of complaints about expensive media from this perspective (just be glad we don't live in Japan).

The Retail price is the determining factor in what a discounted price will be. If every BFI title retailed at £50, you would have to expect different prices. So when most UK titles retail at £25 and Criterions retail at £28, its only a £3 difference between the "out of reason" price and the "saints be praised" price. Because Criterion isn't charging £18, Amazon is... so you need to look at the retail prices to see what the actual difference is.

But the real issue is: You're complaining about Amazon's price. Most everyone picks up their films at the £11-£13 range in the UK (which is probably unsustainable for the UK market in the long run). So Amazon is selling Criterions at a 36% discount, which isn't a deal but is actually better than Amazon US's standard Criterion discounted price of $28 - or 30% off. So I'm saying I understand that this price is too high - but about nobody in the US pays $28 for a Criterion (unless they're super jazzed about preordering) - and we'd be complaining if that was the only price we'd have to pay. Perhaps a more direct translation of a problem would be Flicker Alley in the US -its very rare to find them on sale for 50% off - lest there's a BN sale or something. But Flicker Alley retails the same as every other label here, they just don't go on sale at Amazon.

So really, the entire problem of the last several posts is that Criterion UKs have not gone on sale yet (other than that one Blu-ray.com retailer, which I can't find now) and are too expensive at this standard discounted price. There hasn't been any UK equivalent of a BN sale or even a HMV buy 3 for £30 or the likes. Its not exactly Criterion's fault that Amazon drops the price of most every other label's titles at 50%+ but as of yet hasn't done the same for Criterion titles (this seems like more of an issue with a lack of retailer competition in the UK). I will assume that some major retailer will have some Criterion UK sale sometime soon, thus you'll be able to buy these for your desired £11-13 range, and this whole issue will be become moot.

[TMDaines]

Of course, Arrow increased their price when they came to the US market. We've established that prices in the US for boutique home media are generally dearer than in the UK. You would therefore have expected them to have increased their price.

But, again, I believe you are obsessing over RRP (or list price or whatever you want to call) when the role it plays in the UK home video market for the consumer is small. Virtually no sales in the UK, whether from Amazon, HMV, Base, Zavvi, Hive etc, are based upon percentage reductions of the RRP. The primary factor is time since release. Releases generally come in at a higher price point and wiggle themselves up and down to new lows. Even many of Arrow's limited edition boxsets are doing this, if not selling out immediately.

I don't think people having these sort of discussions online are "[picking] up their films at the £11-£13 range in the UK". Look at the current Amazon 3 for £20 sale which is chock full of recent BFIs, or the 2 for £25 sale which has more recent releases. I can literally wait a few months from release and pick up two premium UK releases (from BFI or Arrow) for every Criterion and have change.

My main question would be why are retailers not discounting the price of Criterions in the UK, when we know they are not currently selling well? I can only presume the distributor is keeping the wholesale price of them is relatively high, compared to that of other boutique labels, and there is little profit margin for retailers to discount into. If this is the case, Criterion are pricing themselves out of much of the market, as we, in the UK, are blessed for choice with alternatives better worthy of our disposable income.

[eerik]

I have not been following the pricing discussion closely, but is it really that big of a problem? Weren't the initial concerns that a big American company like Criterion could undercut the prices and run smaller UK-based distributors out of business? At the moment, at least to me, everything seems to be well balanced. Criterion's UK prices are at the level of their US counterparts and companies like Arrow or Eureka don't have the pressure to lower their (already low) prices.

And with the way British pound is going, buying UK Criterions becomes more affordable with each passing day to Eurozone folks.

[TMDaines]

If Criterions were to become cheaper for UK consumers, I don't think UK labels would fret too much. The days of Criterion being the label are well and truly over. There is still a fetishisation there, but Arrow and the BFI and others are easily operating at their level.

The chagrin before was over Criterion hoovering up UK rights by having greater financial muscle than the smaller UK labels, who would not be able to exploit economies of scale over the US and UK.

[MichaelB]

Of course, Arrow increased their price when they came to the US market. We've established that prices in the US for boutique home media are generally dearer than in the UK. You would therefore have expected them to have increased their price.

But, again, I believe you are obsessing over RRP (or list price or whatever you want to call) when the role it plays in the UK home video market for the consumer is small. Virtually no sales in the UK, whether from Amazon, HMV, Base, Zavvi, Hive etc, are based upon percentage reductions of the RRP. The primary factor is time since release. Releases generally come in at a higher price point and wiggle themselves up and down to new lows. Even many of Arrow's limited edition boxsets are doing this, if not selling out immediately.

I don't think people having these sort of discussions online are "[picking] up their films at the £11-£13 range in the UK". Look at the current Amazon 3 for £20 sale which is chock full of recent BFIs, or the 2 for £25 sale which has more recent releases. I can literally wait a few months from release and pick up two premium UK releases (from BFI or Arrow) for every Criterion and have change.

My main question would be why are retailers not discounting the price of Criterions in the UK, when we know they are not currently selling well? I can only presume the distributor is keeping the wholesale price of them is relatively high, compared to that of other boutique labels, and there is little profit margin for retailers to discount into. If this is the case, Criterion are pricing themselves out of much of the market, as we, in the UK, are blessed for choice with alternatives better worthy of our disposable income.

I agree with pretty much all of this. As you say, there's absolutely no point drawing comparisons with the US market, whose pricing strategies are totally irrelevant to most UK consumers, and currently less than appealing even to that small segment of the UK marketplace that imports, thanks to the recent plunge in the pound's value.

The other video market I'm currently very familiar with is Poland's, but it would clearly be absurd to draw unfavourable comparisons between pricing strategies there and in the UK because there are all sorts of local factors that demand the setting of what I would consider to be very low prices in a UK context - I'm just a very happy beneficiary of the end result.

Video markets are almost invariably strongly territorial, and a strategy that works in one territory may well come a cropper elsewhere. If Criterion's sales really are as far below expectations in the UK as was suggested above, they may well be finding this out the hard way. And it's not down to UK consumers being cheapskate so much as the plethora of excellent cheaper alternatives.

[tenia]

I remember when we used to say "Ah, they're the French Criterion / they're the UK Criterion".
Now, in the UK, Criterion is trying to be Arrow, or MoC, or the BFI. Funny how things have changed.

[HKM1]

Does anyone in receipt of the press release know whether His Girl Friday will come out in the UK format? Parallel releases don't seem to happen automatically.

[TMDaines]

In a Lonely Place is currently £14.11 on an Amazon UK Lightning Deal. Not much of a bargain...

[danieltiger]

Isn't that more than 50% off?

[tenia]

Isn't that more than 50% off?

I believe the MSRP is £24.99, so it would be 44% off.

[danieltiger]

Isn't that more than 50% off?

I believe the MSRP is £24.99, so it would be 44% off.

Ah, so Criterion didn't convert the USD prices to GPB. That would be £32.70.