Costly whistle

Press, 6 October 1988, Page 13

Costly whistle

From

TONY VERDON

in London New Zealand viewers may be denied the 8.8.C.’s hit rock and roll series “Tutti Frutti” — because of the cost of a whistle. Strict copyright agreements have placed a $13,500 fee on the whistle, and so scuttled plans to sell the series overseas. In spite of the broad Glaswegian accents in the award-winning six-part series, foreign programme buyers have reportedly flooded 8.8. C. Enterprises with requests to buy it.

But when executives looked into the cost of paying musical copyright payments for the overseas sales, they discovered that just one whistle from one of the fictional rock band members could boost the price by thousands of dollars.

According to the entertainment newspaper “The Stage,” 8.8. C. executives may have to go through the series and cut out all

the sections which would lead to the massive payments to copyright owners. A 8.8. C. executive told “The Stage” that it was just an actor whistling a tune while walking down the street which had caused the problem. A spokesman for 8.8. C. Enterprises confirmed the copyright problem. “As 8.8. C. Enterprises we invested in that programme, although we had other intentions for it besides exporting it — what with L.P. records, books. But there has been a substantial amount of interest from abroad in the series,” he said. The series stars Robbie Coltrane, Maurice Roeves and Emma Thompson. The spokesman said the series had no copyright problems with the music that was specially written for it. It was the existing “Tutti Frutti” song, based on a Little Richard number, that already had copyright.