I've been given not one but two with my Sunday Times - and I don't want any!

Oasis fans; apply and I'll send it to you.

Looked horrid in the advert! These free discs have really got out of hand (though I know The Daily Mail are stopping the weekday and Saturday discs). Having moaned though The Times did give 'Away From Her' free a few weeks ago, fairly good film directed by Fab Sarah Polley and starring Fab Julie Christie:)

If its true that the Mail not doing the wkday dvds then i will be disappointed. Ive managed to build up a fantastic collection of classic British films and was hoping for more. It was the only reason for ever buying the paper.

Apparantly the weekday/Saturday free discs add around 100,000 purchasers of the paper and the Sunday adds up to 600,000 extra copies sold (Prince CD the best 'sellar'). Discs are produced months in advance during the Summer when the productions lines are quieter (thus around 0.16 pence per disc).

Sunday discs will continue as readership on Sundays is not terribly loyal anyhow and the extra sales here really matter. The Daily Mail management feel that as a long-term strategy the free discs do not work as all the additional sales are for the givaway days only and the free discs are expensive to produce. No mention of the paper not being good enough to retain new readers

I do like some of the free discs but environmentally producing so much stuff that no one wants badly enough to actually buy is frightening.

And of course the wonderful Sunday Mirror included one of our copyrights which they were not legally allowed to so, from prison, I sent them a "cease and desist" letter (knowing they had already pressed up) and settled for a fortune in damages!

I think these freebie CD's have caused much harm in the industry in that they have had a severe devaluing effect. With big names giving away their work on such CD's and the fact that said CD's and DVD's now can be found in piles in virtually every charity shop in Britain, it's given the impression that CD's and therefore the contents are worthless. And what's happened? CD sales have declined drastically and more and more people think that all music and movies should be "free".

In the case of Oasis, it definitely is worthless... I can't even wipe my bum on a CD, let alone an Oasis CD!

Interesting that you mentioned charidee shops, as that's where I get my newspaper cds/dvds from.

They usually appear a few days after being in the paper and I'd much rather give my local charidee shop 50p than the MoS etc a penny!

Vince W wrote:

They usually appear a few days after being in the paper and I'd much rather give my local charidee shop 50p than the MoS etc a penny!

Actually, that's a good way of looking at it! On the rare occasions I've bought a paper for the CD or DVD, I've always said I'm buying a CD or DVD with a free newspaper which I toss in the bin the same way some toss the discs into the bin!

Indeed, I feel much happier giving my money to charity instead of the tossers at the newspapers!