Sales

I agree with this. One pirate download does not necessarily equal one lost sale. The pirate might never have bought the product if they couldn't get it for free. On the flipside, the pirate might like what they hear and decide to buy stuff legit. It happens.

I don't know how they arrive at that figure, and I'm sure they'll never tell us.

As for overall sales figures, it's obviously enough to remain solvent, so like pazzer says that's all that really matters. But Big Finish is a niche within a niche,so I think the average number is probably more modest than we might think.  I don't mean to be rude but I don't think the average family sat on the couch watching the new series even knows they exist.

Having said that, I think accumulated lifetime sales for back catalog releases might be a fair bit higher than we'd expect. Not just because they're old, but because they're cheap and will attract customers that way who don't go on buy other stuff. Because if someone starts the Main Range in order paying peanuts, but after a certain point they're asked to make a $10 jump in price point, not all of them will.

Consider the following for BF related social media and online pages:

Facebook page - 61K likes
Twitter - 46K followers
YouTube - 14K followers
Soundcloud - 4.7K followers
Instagram - 16.2K followers
This Very Forum - 752 members

If we average all those platforms out, it gives us a mean of 23.7K people who are at least interested enough to follow the company, but clicks are cheap and audios sometimes are not.

We can assume that a good percentage of those followers and members can be written off as:
- the same people using multiple accounts or platforms
- people involved with the company and thus not customers.
- pirates
- bots

 And some of the people left over many not actually buy anything frequently, and I think very few actually buy everything. But it gives us an extreme upper limit, I think.

I'm not a statistician by any means (or particularly good at math) but if I had to hazard a guess the number of people who are regular customers on a monthly basis are probably closer in number to the population of this forum because like I said it's a niche product that primarily appeals to hardcore nerd fans, and hardcore nerd fans are probably more likely to post in places such as this. Not everyone will, of course, but that 2K ballpark for an average release as estimated by nucleusofswarm seems plausible to me. That plus a surge of casual buyers and lookie-loos when it's something that gets extra press.

EDIT: Something else occurred to me. It's not the same because YouTube is free, but I've seen it bandied about many times that a successful video means getting about 10% of your subscriber count in views. So if we apply that to our numbers it gives us 2.3K average with an upper extreme of 6K. I can believe that.

Not really that much of a surprise....

I’d be interested to know what order that is and the difference between each sales. Myself and others gave Big Finish a bit of a bashing for their lack of promotion for Out of Time, which was such an easy way to get new customers and one of those rare releases that could genuinely hit the public consciousness.

Now, it was inevitable it would be one of, if not the biggest seller for Big Finish this year, but was it a considerably higher seller? How does it compare to other big releases in previous years? For me, it should be by far and away the best selling thing Big Finish has done, not only for getting the two actors together, but just how standalone and affordable it is. It feels like being on the 2020 sales list isn’t enough.

I’m surprised that Stranded did better than Time War 4 for McGann. Again, it’d be interesting to know how the sales are across ranges; e.g. did Time War figures drop off over time?

Well he is in 3 out of the top 4 releases, so he must be a factor.

That is why I find it so bizarre that his inclusion in the novel and comic adaptations didn’t ensure their success.

Catching up on this thread, limited editions like this are probably our best indication of BF sales volumes. Limited Edition of 3000 CD's - still not OOP.

1 am 1 of 5 Aussies that I know who Still haven't received their cd copy yet.. it will be 8 weeks as of tomorrow's date. Interesting times.

Yeah the special limited edition sets used for the novel adaptations, sixth Doctor last adventure, 10DA Vols 1-3 and the light at the end were great and worth the price. Both Masterful and Legacy of time were honestly huge downgrades in design and price that it almost feels incredibly exploitive

Honestly don’t see why they had to put Terror of the Master with that boxset as i really do want to listen to it, moreso than Masterful but its really not worth £20 extra. But like id still like to hear masterful but then if i buy masterful i will never end up listening to Terror of the master so it means im going to be waiting 7 years till it gets Light at the end cheap, wait and see if they release it separately or buy the limited edition and sell it but even then it will be a pain to sell and post because if how dear it is.

Very very insignificant problems i know but also very frustrating ones

Very true they could release it through that, i guess time will tell though.