SOS! Daria Overboard News!

August 13, 2004

Good news: The-N was true to its promise to show the "lost episodes" of Daria, showing uncut versions of "College Bored" and "Cafe Disaffecto." Bad news: Instead of showing "Ill" this week, as they were supposed to, they pre-empted Daria altogether to show an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Some possible reasons why:

1) The "lost" episodes were such a ratings boost that The-N, lacking much of its sizzle until Degrassi begins its new season, has decided to ration out the episodes so that they linger as long as possible. They did this with Degrassi's third season, showing half of the episodes in the fall, then waiting until summer to show the other half.

2) The lost episodes were such a ratings loser that The-N, in spite of its promises, does not want to air the rest of them, unless it's in the early morning when no one would watch anyway.

3) Parents of The-N viewers, alarmed by the uncut airings of "bastard" and "damn," stormed the gates and demanded that The-N refrain from showing any more uncut "lost" episodes. This explanation is unlikely given the amount of risque content that gets aired on Degrassi, and the fact that "Cafe Disaffecto" and "College Bored" appear likely to be reaired several times over the next month.

So that leaves Numbers One and Two. Whichever the reason, it leaves me hopping mad whenever The-N schedule acts like that of its big sister, MTV. I think we need to tell The-N how we feel. Here's the feedback link:

The-N Feedback Page

July 10, 2004

So it appears that finally our voices were heard, and The-N will be broadcasting the "lost episodes" of Daria starting July 30th with "College Bored," and running throughout August. Gee, and it only took them a whole year :eyeroll: The news was broken on the PPMB by Daria-UK, and on Television Without Pity by UniqBlue69. Right now, it's not clear if all 12 episodes will be shown (Some have said it will only be eight... at this point, what are they afraid of? On Degrassi, they just had an episode where two guys kissed.), or whether they will be subject to the same Draconian cuts as the other episodes.

Part of me wonders whether The-N always meant to show these episodes eventually, but wanted to string it out for a long while, the way they did with "Is It College Yet?", waiting a whole year. In any event, what I find amusing is that at the beginning of Daria's run on The-N, it felt like the show was too mature for the network, with its teeny-bopper UK-New Zealand shows, holdovers from Nickelodeon ("Clarrisa Explains It All"), and silly exposes on a middle-schooler's locker -- whereas now it almost feels too tame, thanks to the network's new emphasis on being a junior MTV. Had Daria been acquired more recently, I'm confident that not only would all of the episodes have aired, but most of the content would have been left untouched. Sigh...

In other news, Daria is showing on MTV2 in the UK, and Beavis and Butt-head is airing on MTV2 in the US, fueling speculation that sometime in the future, Daria might be shown, uncut, on the American MTV2 as well. How that affects the Basic Cable petition... well, it might lessen the need a little, but since lots of people don't get MTV2 (including me), I still think it is worth pursuing the show's airing on a basic cable station.

Some people have said that no basic cable network is interested in Daria. I think that's bull. The real problem, from my experience, is that MTV/Viacom simply doesn't want to release one of its shows to a non-Viacom station. Have you seen Beavis and Butt-head or Ren and Stimpy running on any basic cable network but Spike TV? Since Daria isn't guy enough, I doubt it would ever get aired there, but it could do well on another network. Good luck getting MTV to put it there, though.

January 6, 2004

Hi folks. I haven't updated much here lately because most of the news worth reporting has been on the DVDaria site. Go there to read about the joy of finally reaching 10,000 signatures!

August 19, 2003

Major announcement: last weekend, on August 9th and 10th, Noggin aired "Is It Fall Yet?" and "Is It College Yet?" uncensored. The Allison subplot was left in, along with all of the "bastards" and "screw you"'s. Basically Noggin just aired the MTV (with commercials) cut rather than make a new one. The out-of-primetime airings (3:30 pm PST/6:30 pm EST and 11 pm PST/2 am EST) led us to suspect that Noggin was trying to keep it quiet, not wanting to rile up "concerned" parents, but the fact that they did is tremendously positive, and is a sign that 1) they might air more uncensored episodes, 2) that they have heard our many, many, many complaints, and 3) that Noggin and Viacom are aware that we want to watch Daria pure and uncensored.

What does that mean for the future of the Basic Cable petition? Too early to tell. If Noggin airs more and more episodes uncensored, and even releases some of the previously unaired episodes, that would definitely reduce the need for a petition... especially if Noggin winds up becoming part of a basic cable package, as I've heard it might very soon. However, those are some pretty big "if"s. Until then, I think the petition works well as a source of pressure. So does feedback to The-N. I urge everyone to click on the Feedback page to thank them for airing the Daria movies uncensored, as well as ask for the rest of the episodes to be aired that way. http://www.the-n.com/contact.php

August 3, 2003

First, some good news: DVDaria is being updated again! I was going to wait until Aapo instituted his new designs, but finally decided to just go ahead with it when a poster on the PPMB asked whether the site was still relevant. Those of us involved in the rescue efforts don't want other people thinking that they've been abandoned. I'll post some of the latest DVD news here, but in the future, I'm going to keep DVD news limited to DVDaria and post a link from this page to the site.

Bad news: Kult TV has informed Martin Sylvester that it will be unable to pick up Daria, stating that "it's not felt Daria has a sufficient UK fanbase (the only region we can legitimately sell to and license for) to warrant and recover the cost of licensing for the territory. " According to Martin, this means that they couldn't pay what Viacom was asking. However, we are looking at other, US-based distributors. Details on the DVDaria home page.

July 14, 2003

A couple of significant things...

• First, the first volume of The Padded Walls, a Daria fanzine designed to promote awareness of the show, premiered this week. You need to pay a $5 fee to access the issue, but from there, you get a year's subscription to the quarterly mag.
• Second, Father Martin Sylvester posted on the Paperpusher board, "Kult TV is a publisher whose speciality is video and DVD releases of TV series which have a cult following, but whose producers have not released them. It's them I have to thank for The Avengers on DVD. Their other releases include Farscape and Lexx . At this page here , they say, 'Want to see your favourite series released on kult-Tv? Any other comments or queries? Then let us know.'" Kult TV is based in the UK, and as a result, replied to Martin:

  "Many thanks for your email.

  I'm afraid that at present we have no plans to pursue a release on Daria. One of the real problems with a show such as this (aside from its perceived US slant, which for us as exclusively UK & Eire licensors is a difficulty) is in following on continuing someone else's release - if a company stops doing a release then it tends to be because it's doing badly (ie not covering licensing fees) in which case no one wants to risk buying the rights for something that may not recoup them. Shows like this tend to get a reputation which puts off companies like ourselves.

  I will however pass on your email to the people who handle the rights purchasing decisions [...]

  [I]t annoys me constantly that some good shows go unreleased because the core group isn't perceived as big enough. Much of the blame should go on license holders who ask so much in an advance that companies run scared from taking the risk. This year alone I've already seen us pass on two of my favourite shows because we'd simply not recoup what is being asked. It seems mad, because the license holder then doesn't get a penny - okay so if they asked less they'd get less, but at least it would be something!"

  We were encouraged, though, by Kult TV's promise to pass on the e-mail to "the people who handle the rights purchasing decisions." Martin thought we ought to comment on their feedback page anyway, because as Martin put it, "A Region 2 release could benefit US fans too. If KultTV bought a licence for a R2 release, you bet it'd make Viacom sit up and take notice, and make a Viacom R1 release much, much more likely. Especially if the R2s sold well, and KultTV licensed further seasons." In other words, we should post on the feedback page that we want Daria released on DVD or VHS in Europe (Region 2). Others, like Robert Nowall, reasoned that we should also see if there are any US equivalents to Kult TV.

In any case, I am going to put up a link to the Kult TV feedback page, as well as one to The Padded Walls on the SOS! main page. When writing to Kult TV, Martin recommends that you make their job easier by stating that you don't need a reply: "[T]he hard-worked person who deals with the emails generated by the feedback form won't have time to craft individual replies to each of us, much as he'd like to, and don't be disappointed when you receive a standardised reply. It doesn't mean he's fobbing you off; he can still tell the rights purchasing department he's had another n enquiries about Daria today."

Please show your support!

 

June 13, 2003

Yesterday morning, I finally had the chance to speak to Kim Noone, manager of MTV's Home Video Department. While what she told me wasn't exactly a surprise, it was disheartening.

• For starters, MTV has no plans in their "current agenda," or possible ever, to put the Daria seasons out on DVD. The reason? The last two DVDs they put out (the movies) did not do well, according to their reports. That came as a surprise to me, because we have seen DVDaria stats showing the opposite. Had I had longer than five minutes (and been able to interpret the www.amazonscan.com stats), I would have probed her more about that.
• However, I did point out that other shows that were a "blip on the radar screen" (like Undergrads *cough*) are making their way to DVD. Why them and not Daria? Her response: "I don't know anything about that."
• I also mentioned that one reason for the supposedly lackluster sales was that these DVDs were very hard to find (and, I should have added, dammit, poorly put together and not well advertised). I told her about going into a Borders and finding one copy amongst rows of Batman and other animated series. She replied that they sent it to all major distributors and you can find it online.
• Apparently she is aware that Daria does have a large following, and has received calls, letters, and websites... but it doesn't matter. As long as current Daria DVDs continue to "underperform," they won't release more of them.
• I asked her if there was anyone else in-the-know in her department, whom I could speak with to verify, and she said, "No, it's pretty much me." Whether that's true or not, I couldn't say. In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if another MTV rep gave me the same information.

Frankly, I'm not sure what to say about the above. First, I need to find someone at MTV who is in charge of licensing out the show to learn if they'll ever put it on basic cable. If said person replies "no," that's it, folks: we won't have anything except for bootlegs and cut-up Noggin episodes. I don't know if the DVDaria petition would alert them to the fact that people are willing to pay, but as Alan Benard (aka Um) once mentioned, money talks more than anything else. Until I learn more, if you haven't already done so, please sign the petitions, buy the existing DVDs and videos, and voice your thoughts on the Home Theater Forum, no matter how redundant they may seem.

 

June 1, 2003

I added a link to Thea Zara's interview with Alvaro J. Gonzales (voice of Trent Lane) and the accompanying petition for a Mystik Spiral Spinoff to the main SOS! page.

 

May 17, 2003

I've learned some interesting things in the past week:

• On April 6th, Michelle Klein-Hass posted the following at alt.tv.daria:"I have already spoken to Linda Simensky from Cartoon Network, and she would be absolutely ecstatic if Viacom/MTV Networks released Daria for airing on CN. They would pick it up in a heartbeat." Michelle later stressed to me that this was an informal conversation, so it may not be 100% inevitable that Cartoon Network would snatch up Daria the moment it were available. However, what it tells me is that Daria is not the unwanted stepchild we'd feared it to be. We'd put up our petitions and "rescue" sights out of hope that we could convince someone to take the show on, and now it seems that we don't have to worry quite so much. Someone loves our show! And there could be more. Sign the petition everyone!
• AOL Time-Warner was forced to sell its fifty percent share of Comedy Central to Viacom, giving the network that made Daria full ownership of the channel. We learned that they recently showed Undergrads, a short-lived MTV cartoon, which makes us hopeful that they might someday show Daria uncut.
• Since Noggin first acquired Daria a year ago and began running heavily-edited episodes, we've made several frustrated assumptions.
• Noggin was the only channel that wanted Daria (clearly untrue, as shown above).
• MTV/Viacom refused to shop the show to other channels.
• Noggin now controls Daria.
• If or when Viacom releases Daria DVDs, they'll use the edited Noggin versions because those are the only episodes that the "tween" set, the only fan base that matters, will have seen.
A few weeks ago, buoyed by Michelle's info, I decided to call Viacom and find out the truth. Naturally, it wasn't as easy as that. Viacom headquarters are based in New York, so I had to be mindful of long-distance costs and that they ran three hours ahead. I started out asking for the head of Viacom programming, getting bounced around a few times before someone finally asked what it was regarding. I told them, and was transferred to Tom Ashim (pronounced "Ash-ime"... I don't know the exact spelling), General Manager of Noggin. When I explained to his secretary what I was looking for, she transferred me to Mary Parkiness (again, not sure of exact spelling), Head of Programming. She told me:
1. Daria has been licensed by MTV to Noggin for 3 years. She is not sure whether it will run all three, but it will definitely run for another year.
2. Because MTV owns Daria, it is unlikely that it would use edited Noggin episodes in a DVD package, since it would just be easier to use the master episodes. (My thoughts: If MTV controls Daria, what would it gain from marketing to tweens? If anything, it might ruin its sexy image.)
3. Noggin does not have a ratings system in place, so it does not know statistically how popular Daria is with the viewers. They just know through word-of-mouth that it is well-liked.
4. "Is It College Yet?" will make its debut on June 27th. Will the Quinn/Lindy plotline survive? Tune in to find out.
I was very relieved when she told me that Noggin was only leasing the show, and that MTV still owned the master episodes. Frankly, I don't care how much The-N hacks up if the episodes exist in their purity somewhere else, ready for use. Now whether MTV leasing to Noggin means that Daria cannot be shown elsewhere, like Comedy Central or Cartoon Network, I couldn't say. In the near future I plan to contact MTV and find out.
 
Return to SOS! Daria Overboard!