Apologies for asking what probably is an ancient question, but do these things serve any purpose for anyone? Naff 'live' versions of famous recordings, the odd compilation of old tracks just about everyone either has or hates to hear, and a scattering of worthless outtakes: as a mere punter, I just bung them all straight in the bin. Everyone I know does the same. I just wonder if I'm missing some brilliant strategy within the industry: why??? The Mail on Sunday is 'tempting' readers with a Carly Simon CD next week which not even her fans seem interested in obtaining, and the Express is inviting its reader to send off p&p for an ELO compilation - to an outsider it's utterly bewildering.

Prunella Minge wrote:

The Mail on Sunday is 'tempting' readers with a Carly Simon CD next week which not even her fans seem interested

- to an outsider it's utterly bewildering.

Well Minge, the Carly Simon CD interests me!

I'm sorry that you are utterly bewildered about the Freebie concept - a simple marketing ploy for generations.

Is there no (free) CD whatsoever that would interest you?

Yes, you patronising twat, it would. It's called buying a newspaper.

Prunella Minge wrote:
Yes, you patronising twat, it would. It's called buying a newspaper.

But Minge, why not answer my question?

You may not know anyone who keeps these CDs & DVDs, but they do sell more newspapers - it's measured very closely, and the publishers aim for an "uplift" in sales of between 10% and 25% depending on the quality of the freebie. They also do market research to check on whether people buy just for the CD, whether they'd have bought the paper anyway & throw it away etc.

I have amassed a large collection of these freebie discs and i guess i must have saved hundreds of pounds on shop prices. The History of World War One and The World at War, a dozen or so Carry on films, Almost all the Ealing classics and a large collection of BBC Wildlife and assorted feature films. Oh yes and the complete Captain Pugwash. nd if you get too many swnd em to your local charity shop/

The market research point is part of the problem IMO. How and where, and by whom, is this done? Is it executed by the same groups that supply the BBC with the news that 'The Public' prefers newsreaders to walk about instead of sitting behind a desk? If we're discussing naivety, trusting the questions posed by certain unspecified market research companies is pretty high on the list. And I wasn't discussing DVDs, I was discussing CDs. A single movie is much easier to research in terms of its appeal as a freebie. An ersatz K-Tel circle of crap is a different proposition. How many copies of Band of Gold does 'The Public' genuinely desire? Do many people, really, ejaculate with Leavisian delight when a lazy 'reprise' of a few Jeff Lynn outtakes lands on their velvet-slippered tootsies? I find the eagerness to believe in the dubious empirical claims of those still flogging this particular shagged-out old horse a bit much, and the knee-jerk 'so there' response to any questioning of it is, I repeat, entirely unnecessarily condescending.

On the basis that each of these CD promotions costs the newspaper around £500,000 (licenses, costs of CDs, extra advertising etc.), I think it's reasonable to assume that they wouldn't keep doing them if they didn't have some positive effect, which is easily measured on the day by the initial sales uplift, and confirmed by the follow-up research they do, via subscriber surveys and the follow-up offers (for box-sets and so on) they always feature inside the paper.

It's a marketing exercise, that's all -the link between free CDs you don't like and the evils of market research and the effect it has on what ends up on TV is a bit lost on me however...

In that case I hope a CD-Rom is offered on hermeneutics 101.

I hate, hate, hate covermounts (that's the term we use); I think they cheapen music; I never allow them and sued the Sunday Mirror for a fortune when they used one of our copyrights without permission.