This is one of those utter pipe dream ideas I've had that falls into the "I don't have the start up capital for this, but why the **** hasn't Sky [or insert other extremely profitable media company] done it?"

An online archive of all soap operas produced by buying the Broadcast rights to them from the first episode with the condition of a in-perpetuity online copy of each episode subject to payback. Uses advertisements within the show, or a pay-per-episode option to recuperate the cost, with a percentage - say 33% of profit returning the original producer of the shows.

The TV companies clearly don't want the content available for free as they keep working very hard to get it off YouTube under copyright claims, so could they not collaborate to do this - most fans would be willing to watch adverts/pay for this content. If the worry is about more recent episodes being available, why not go up to episodes from 10 years ago, that way you also guarantee new episodes and continuing customers.

Even if it just had Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale Farm/Emmerdale on it would surely be a very in-demand service. It takes away the logistical cost of producing mass market DVDs as well. I'm almost certain these three soaps will have already been converted to a digital format or will soon need to be, if archival practices are sensible, to prevent the film deteriorating, so the main bulk of the cost here would be data costs for the website and marketing.

I'm aware I've posted on this subject before and might come across as slightly obsessed with it. That's because I am - the technology and the episodes exist to make this possible. If these companies are going to delete 30-40 year old episodes from YT the least they can do is re-broadcast/make them available online.

If they were priced at 5-10p per episode that would reasonable as it would work out between £445.50 to £891 for the entire coronation street archive up to recent episodes. Assuming just 10,000 people watch each episode of the back catalogue, surely an underestimate given the amount of fans, that would raise up to 8.91 million. Surely that would be enough to fund the site?

On another note, what sort of price would people be willing to pay for archival episodes?

I'd prefer DVDs. But,if this was the only way to view episodes that are inaccessible then I suppose so. It's frustrating that Coronation St. has - unlike most UK programmes from the 60s- every single episode in the archive,but the vast majority of pre 1976 episodes have never been seen in the UK since their original screening. There's only ever been one repeat run - on Granada Plus covering episodes from 1976 to 1994. There have been no significant DVD releases of pre 1990s episodes since the Network sets in the noughties.
You would wonder don't ITV have any interest in exploiting this asset,or do they just believe that there is no market for it?

I would happily pay a subscription fee like Netflix
and for it to cover all soaps from around the world past and present

It gets worse than that, most of the 70s and 80s re-runs were cut down for advertising.

I read somewhere that that all of the episodes are still available, but some tapes were deleted and other companies have there re-runs, is there a possibility it's too logistically difficult to bring every episode together?

I don't think ITV really understands that there's a market for old shows at all.

You also have to pay every single actor a residual for the re broadcast of their work. It would be far too expensive and possibly the reason why it's never been done.

It would be fantastic if if happened though

Actually you don't. Unless it is written into their contract. And i doubt soap actors have it written into their contract to make money long term on reruns as soaps are rarely aired again on television. It's not like the cast of friends who will forever make money from reruns because it is constantly aired on a loop and because they signed a syndication contract as well.

Does it not change if you're selling the media rather than repeating to require royalties? Apparently the copyright for Broadcasters from the last 50 years after death of cameraman, director, producer, author of dialogue etc , would an actor be classed as an author of dialogue in those purposes as in that case we'd have to wait until 50 years after Bill Roache's or Philip Lowries death to legally watch Episode 1 unless ITV release it for sale (well you can buy it already but as part of a collection and it's on YouTube) but crucially apply this throughout the board up to recent episodes and you could see the paperwork and financial cost quickly spiraling. Personally if I was ITV I'd be looking to cash in on it now or within the next few decades, before those copyrights begin expiring and the tapes deteriorate to being unusable - making it commercially available would also be one of the most sensible ways of preserving the archive for future generations.

The only reason not to that I can see is the prevalence of torrents and youtube uploads . But if there concerned about that why not upload them to YT themselves and roll in the ad revenue.

I'm not sure that there's a market for soap reruns anymore. If you look at TV repeats, the bulk of them were shown on Sky channels when satellite TV was in it's infancy and they were trying out different things. Sky Soap, Granada Plus and UK Gold all closed or dropped their soap content over time. And then you have shows like Sons & Daughters and Sunset Beach that didn't last long into their repeat runs on Channel 5 and ITV2 before they were dropped or moved into a 4am timeslot.

Now I know having them on demand is different in that viewers aren't tied to a timeslot but based on what's available online already, I'm still not sure the audience would be there. Eldorado, Out of the Blue, Albion Market, Sunset Beach and Sons & Daughters are just a few that I can think of that are all online for free. Their views fluctuate wildly with early episodes being watched by thousands while later episodes have only garnered a few hundred views. I know a Netflix type service would be a tidier, more centralised way of watching but I'm unsure of it's marketability. It's a nice idea though. I couldn't imagine committing to watching Corrie from the beginning but there's some of the shorter run soaps like Castles, Springhill, The Cedar Tree and Night & Day that I would be interesting in watching.