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BBC Studios Home Entertainment

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BBC Studios Home Entertainment

2 Entertain Video Limited, trading as BBC Studios Home Entertainment, is a British video and music publisher founded in 2004 following the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International by BBC Worldwide and the Woolworths Group respectively.

BBC Video was established in 1980 as a division of BBC Enterprises (later BBC Worldwide) with John Ross Barnard at the head, just as home video systems were starting to gain ground.

At launch, the BBC had no agreement with British talent unions such as Equity or the Musician's Union (MU), so BBC Video was limited in the television programming it could release. Initially, video cassette and laserdisc releases were either programmes with no Equity or MU involvement, such as natural history and other documentaries, or material licensed from third parties, including feature films such as High Noon and the first video release of Deep Purple's California Jam concert.

For the first few years, the BBC produced videotapes in both VHS and Betamax formats. The company also worked with Philips on early Laserdisc releases, including a notable ornithology disc called British Garden Birds, presented by David Attenborough. This disc was released in 1982 and included digital data in the form of Teletext, which could be read by any suitably equipped television set. This pioneering use of a data channel on a consumer video format led directly to the development of the BBC Domesday Project in 1984–1986. Since videos could have stereo soundtracks, BBC Video produced stereophonic versions of many programmes that had been broadcast in mono. These included The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.

The label grew significantly from £13 million turnover in 1989 to nearly £39 million in 1994, enjoying success from television and film serials which had proved popular when first televised and faced high demand for a video release once the new technology became widespread, thus reducing the need for television reruns.

In 1991, BBC Video was the number-one video label in the UK when it sold more pre-recorded videotapes, by value as well as by unit count, than any other company, even all of the Hollywood studios combined.

In October 1985, K-Tel and Braveworld, subsidiaries of the New Southgate-based Prestwich Group, in partnership with Paddy Toomey, launched "The Video Collection", a range of budget-priced video releases that were promoted as being "A video for the price of a blank tape" that would be sold at Woolworths stores across the country. Both Braveworld and The Video Collection were seen as sister labels, with The Video Collection mainly handling re-releases of classic films and special interest television titles.

In 1986, The Video Collection secured a video deal with Thames Television, becoming their exclusive home video distributor through the label "Thames Video Collection". On 16 July, Karl-Lorimar Home Video signed an agreement with The Video Collection to distribute children's, family and special interest programs and Scholastic-Lorimar Home Video releases for the British market. Shortly afterward, The Video Collection underwent a management buyout. It began operating independently through the holding company Rushstage Limited (later renamed to "Future Vision Limited", then eventually, "Video Collection International Limited" in 1987). With this, the company expanded rapidly, securing the market lead in retail video sales in the mid to late 1980s and the early to mid-1990s.

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