One AIO Season A Year

[Knight Fisher]

If they are canon, and the regular album can still go on without them, character development will be laughable. It simply does not work.

[Jonathan]

I emailed Brock Eastman about a month ago with my concerns. Shoot me if you want, but I don't think the OAC is an inherently bad idea. My issue comes when Brock said the exclusive episodes would most likely be considered canon with the rest of the show. If they weren't canonical, go ahead and knock your socks off. But if I'm going to miss canon episodes of Adventures in Odyssey, someone somewhere will get an aggravated message from me...

Did you suggest a discounted rate for people only interested in the episodes? At $180 a year, that's $15 bucks an episode (assuming one per month), and since that's the only thing in the club I'm interested in I'm not wild about the price.

[The Old Judge]

I emailed him a few times, but then all of a sudden he stopped. I'll try to contact him again, and we'll see how it goes...

[Dallas R.]

I wonder if people from Focus are seeing our feedback here. I'm sorry, but logistically, this idea just seems to get worse and worse. I'm definitely on the same page as Jonathan. There is no way I can justify spending $15 per episode. It's tough enough justifying the $30 a year for two albums. I could care less about streaming 700 episodes I already bought over the years.

So, in summary- loyal fans who have painstakingly bought every album for over 10 years will now be forced to pay gigantic amounts of money each year, or else no longer be allowed to listen to up to 1/2 of the episodes each year.

And what does this do to the chat rooms, message boards, and fan sites if half of the audience can't hear this many episodes? What about the podcasts? Can they still interview characters who appear in club episodes? I don't think I've ever been this upset about an executive decision from FotF. I know I should probably calm down since this is sort of all still speculation, but the very idea makes me very unhappy.

[The Old Judge]

The only point that's necessarily good about this is fans that are just getting into the show could stream all the 738 episodes they've never listened to. That would actually save them money instead of buying all 57 albums.

[Reddo]

I emailed Brock Eastman about a month ago with my concerns. Shoot me if you want, but I don't think the OAC is an inherently bad idea. My issue comes when Brock said the exclusive episodes would most likely be considered canon with the rest of the show. If they weren't canonical, go ahead and knock your socks off. But if I'm going to miss canon episodes of Adventures in Odyssey, someone somewhere will get an aggravated message from me...

Did you suggest a discounted rate for people only interested in the episodes? At $180 a year, that's $15 bucks an episode (assuming one per month), and since that's the only thing in the club I'm interested in I'm not wild about the price.

it is one/month

-- 03 Sep 2013 05:49 pm --

The only point that's necessarily good about this is fans that are just getting into the show could stream all the 738 episodes they've never listened to. That would actually save them money instead of buying all 57 albums.

if you bought 1/month though after a few years you'd have all of the albums and then be saving money

-- 03 Sep 2013 05:55 pm --

And what does this do to the chat rooms, message boards, and fan sites if half of the audience can't hear this many episodes? What about the podcasts? Can they still interview characters who appear in club episodes? I don't think I've ever been this upset about an executive decision from FotF. I know I should probably calm down since this is sort of all still speculation, but the very idea makes me very unhappy.

It's possible it'll make a split in the message boards, areas for members and areas for those that aren't. fan sites will probably keep info on all episodes official podcast will probably interview people from the club episodes as a way to further advertise it.

[Peachey Keen]

I'm not happy with this decision, but we could just wait till the end of the year and pay $18 in December and hear all 12 episodes and then cancel until the end of the year after. Either way, I still think it's a foolish idea.

[Reddo]

I'm not happy with this decision, but we could just wait till the end of the year and pay $18 in December and hear all 12 episodes and then cancel until the end of the year after. Either way, I still think it's a foolish idea.

That's what I was going to do just join every 4 months or so to keep up with the new episodes, but once a year works too.

[WindowWasher]

I don't always keep up with the latest news so this club is new to me. Do you pay per month then? And does that mean the "exclusive" episodes will not be sold in hard copy form? This sounds really screwed up! My enthusiasum for AIO hasn't been as high as it used to be. I basically buy albums just to keep my collection complete. This would cause my interest in AIO to wane even more. I feel bad for all the kids whose parents are in ministry who just can't afford that price. Talk about alienating your fanbase!

[Marvin D.]

All I have to say about this is. .

AE, we used to pay $90/month for Internet service, sans phone service.

Thatisall.

[Dallas R.]

I feel bad for all the kids whose parents are in ministry who just can't afford that price. Talk about alienating your fanbase!

Thank you. I'm glad someone else is thinking about that.

All I have to say about this is. .

AE, we used to pay $90/month for Internet service, sans phone service.

Thatisall.

But that's for a service that (at least in my family) will be used for well over 100 hours each month. Not a service where the only real benefit is a 22 minute listening experience.

[Christian A.]

I feel bad for all the kids whose parents are in ministry who just can't afford that price. Talk about alienating your fanbase!

Thank you. I'm glad someone else is thinking about that.

It's not even really just PKs, though. My dad makes fairly good money, but because he's not nearly as interested in AIO as I am, even if I did want to do this, I highly doubt he would go for it. And I assume the same would be true for many, if not most, AIO fans. I highly doubt there will be a large amount of parents on board with this...

[The Top Crusader]

Yeah... I could see if you were a brand new fan that the ability to listen to ALL THE EPISODES (or... is it just album episodes, I assume? So a few missing, but still...) that would be sort of neat, but, yeah, people like... quite a few here, have basically all of them already.

I kind of assume that other than maybe trying to do one awesome one to hook people, the "exclusive" episodes might just be dumb throwaway scripts with mostly irrelevant characters. We can hope, anyway.

$5 a month, maybe even matching Netflix prices would be comprehensible, if still a little silly, but the cost is too high for the service rendered. I've been saying all along that releases the albums digitally in advance kills fan anticipation and hurts the product overall, this is just another bad idea.

[whittaker96]

Just scrolling through this thread for the first time and learning a lot.

I agree that $180 is an unreasonable price when Amazon Prime and Netflix and the rest of all the other streaming services are charging similar services. However, I think a slightly lowered price, to a model more like Spotify or Pandora (which streams audio), would make more sense, somewhere more around $100ish a year. With all the bonus material and ability to stream everywhere, that seems like a more fair price to me while still giving Focus a substantial amount for ministry and outreach.

What I'm wondering is, when Brock said that the exclusive episodes would be considered canon, does he mean with with Adventures in Odyssey, or with the town of Odyssey? Because if he meant the town of Odyssey, could we possibly be seeing (ahem, I mean hearing) the first episodes of an Odyssey spinoff? Loyal listeners to the show Adventures in Odyssey wouldn't be alienated, while subscribers could enjoy practically something similar to Odyssey, but something that doesn't take away anything from the radio show with normal pricing.

Just a thought.

[jennifertwt]

-- 22 Sep 2013 02:14 pm --

I posted a long reply that seems to have been lost in space. But basically, even though we are two now gainfully employed people, I will not pay 180$ per year to have access to episodes I already own in hard copy and have uploaded myself to my own computer just to hear 12 "free" episodes a year. What I would pay for is to download those same "free" OAC episodes from iTunes. If they are truly Club only eps, then they should just be "one shot" eps that do not affect the main storyline. The target base is still 8-12 year olds who do not get to decide how to spend the family´s money. Hard working families would be more likely concerned with food, clothing, rent, etc. It is unfair to those kids to get "left behind". Now what could work well, is if the OAC eps were theme based like the Parker Jones mysteries, or something like it that are separate from the main AIO storyline and then released as a digital album on iTunes at the end of the year. Then those that enjoyed them in the club and those that did not have that opportunity can purchase them from iTunes. The concept of an OAC could work, but for alot less money and with supplemental content that is nice to have, but not essential to keeping up with the big picture.

-- 22 Sep 2013 02:17 pm --

The only point that's necessarily good about this is fans that are just getting into the show could stream all the 738 episodes they've never listened to. That would actually save them money instead of buying all 57 albums.

or they could listen to the daily broadcast.

[The Old Judge]

True, but then that's only one episode a day, and most of the time they don't go straight through chronologically. If I was a new fan, and I turned on the broadcast to find that Album 32 is playing, I would be confused. Also there's people like me that live away from the stations that broadcast it, or whose schedules don't correspond with the airtime. (Like me. Our nearest station plays the shows at 7:00 P.M.) And finally there are people who don't want to listen to only one episode a day.

[Jonathan]

Something else to consider is a new fan might not want to spend that much money. If I were in that position I'd buy a couple of albums to see if it's worth it. And then, with some hard copies already owned, you've got to decide (if you're an adult and not a kid) to keep doing the hard copy thing or not.

Or put more simply, if new fans have the biggest incentive to pay for this club, it's still a pretty small incentive.

[E II]

Just really read this and I've got to say bad idea. What if there is a
Say a kid. And this kids parents let him get things like this if he pays for it. But with 180$ a year he would not be able to pay.then he would be missing out on all this stuff. So ya overall bad terrible worst idea ever.

[Bren]

The future of the Adventures in Odyssey broadcast schedule is still being discussed. For the near future. there will be one set of 12 OAC stories (available exclusively in the club) and one set of 12 "regular" stories (available on radio, CD, and so on). That's always up for discussion, but that will be the plan for at least the next year.

[jennifertwt]

The future of the Adventures in Odyssey broadcast schedule is still being discussed. For the near future. there will be one set of 12 OAC stories (available exclusively in the club) and one set of 12 "regular" stories (available on radio, CD, and so on). That's always up for discussion, but that will be the plan for at least the next year.

in that case the OAC stories need to either have their own storyline separate from the "public" broadcast or just be "slice of life" eps that enchance and possibly intertwine with the regular storyline but not so much that you are lost if you are not in the club. This takes it away from being a "Ministry" and into a "business". Alternatively, the OAC eps could be made available at the end of the year as a download album, I could definitely go for that. I can understand only producing 1 album a year and if so, then they should just go with that. WE have 25 years of reruns to be happy with. However, with the continuing aging of the actors, you have to wonder if that is a wise idea. In many ways, AIO ended for me with Album 50, if I start getting lost in not being a club member, I may just stick with that. There are a few eps since the relaunch that are really good, but all in all, I am not quite enjoying it as much as Series 1 and Series 2.