Online Prices Set to Rise as Chancellor Closes "VAT Loophole"

According to this morning's Sunday Times the forthcoming budget will close the VAT loophole that enables the supermarkets and online stores to avoid paying VAT on CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays that retail for under £18, by shipping the product from offshore companies based in Jersey and Guernsey.

New legislation will be introduced to reduce the "no VAT" limit from its current £18 limit to £8, meaning that most titles will now be subject to 20% VAT and are likely to rise in price accordingly.

Taking a Leave of Absence (possibly permanently)

Hello and welcome to not so much the latest episode of the UK Blu-ray Review Podcast, as a statement about it probably being the last.

I am, as they euphemistically say, suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly "between jobs" which means that it’s hard to justify the outlay, both financial and in terms of time, that it takes to produce a reasonably complete podcast episode each week. My priorities need to be around getting more work that actually pays the bills.

I had originally intended to keep the podcast going "come what may" for 6 months to see if it took off or not, but after 12 weeks the download figures for the podcast have remained at the same very low levels as when it started at the beginning of January. In fact if anything, they are slightly lower now even after the slight boost the podcast got when iTunes finally started listing it.

I started the podcast for myself – I thought it would be fun (which, mainly, it has been), and I also thought there was a need for something like it with nobody else doing what I thought was required. But I seriously under-estimated the time it would take up each week, and completely over-estimated the interest there would be in it (which appears to be almost non-existent :-(). It’s hard to justify keeping it going. The competition last week was a last feeble attempt to grow the audience but it attracted precisely zero entries, so clearly wasn't an avenue that was worth exploring further.

I’m going to be taking the next few weeks out to kick-start some other projects instead of spending every minute that I’m not working trying to get the next weekly podcast out and ready on time.

I WILL be back on 17th April, either with a regular episode of the show and an announcement that I’m rebooting the podcast and it’s returning, or definite confirmation that it won’t be back and has to be regarded as a failure and mis-step on my part.

In the meantime I’d like to thank those few who gave me feedback on the podcast, either through wonderful reviews on itunes or through enthusiastic comments on the blog or through private messages on the one forum - AVForums.com - that didn’t automatically ban any mention of the podcast for fear of 'competition' to their own forums or web sites. I hope those of you that offered encouragement and support understand that it’s hard to justify the time, effort and expense required when the downloads each week are, to be frank, barely scraping double figures.

I’m starting to understand why pretty much all the podcast publications and blogs have vanished over the last year or two, and why the UK DVD Review podcast which inspired this one gave up on the format after nearly 3 years of podcasting. It’s hard to get an audience when there’s so much on offer from the BBC and mainstream media and so little chance to publicise your existence. I still think the format was correct, but without any means of actually marketing the podcast it's hard to get any kind of meaningful audience - meaningful in the sense that it justifies the time and effort required to keep it going.

There will be an update on the situation on Sunday, 17th April – a month from now – so please check back then, for a final statement.

Thanks,

Ian Smith

#11: Saw 3D, IP Man 2, The Kid.. and more!

The latest podcast episode is now available. You'll find all the details, the transcript download and the links to the individual title pages with trailers and Screencaps over on the main podcast web site.
There's also a copy of the latest Blu-Ray Sales Top 10 and early notification of the titles I'll be reviewing in the next podcast, which should be published late on Sunday night, 20th March 2011.

You can win a copy of Let Me In on Blu-ray by posting a podcast review on iTunes and sending a copy of it to ian@iansmith.co.uk to reach me by lunchtime on Sunday, 20th March 2011 at the latest. To provide any feedback on this latest episode please use the Comment link at the bottom of this blog post.

#10: Due Date, Alice in Wonderland, Easy A, Paranormal Activity 2 and more

The latest podcast episode is now available. You'll find all the details, the transcript download and the links to the individual title pages with trailers and Screencaps over on the main podcast web site. There's also a copy of the latest Blu-Ray Sales Top 10 and early notification of the titles I'll be reviewing in the next podcast, which should be published late on Sunday night, 13th March 2011.

If you've got any feedback on the latest episode, please use the Comment link at the bottom of this blog post. For comments on the podcast as a whole please click on the iTunes icon to make a comment there that might help others to make up their mind as to whether the podcast is worth downloading or not.

Episode 9 has finally been released

Almost a week later than planned :-( the latest podcast episode is now available. You'll find all the details, the transcript download and the links to the individual title pages with trailers and Screencaps over on the main podcast web site.
There's also a copy of the latest Blu-Ray Sales Top 10 and early notification of the titles I'll be reviewing in the next podcast, which I'm still hoping to get out late tomorrow (Sunday) night UK time :-O

If you've got any feedback on the latest episode, please use the Comment link at the bottom of this blog post. For comments on the podcast as a whole please click on the iTunes icon to make a comment there that might help others to make up their mind as to whether the podcast is worth downloading or not.

I'm Late, I'm Late... for a Very Important Date!

Other commitments mean that this week's podcast is being published later than usual. The podcast should be available late Saturday afternoon (5th March) with the following episode appearing as usual late Sunday evening (6th March). Sorry for the delay!