I have been quite surprised by the responses I got on last week’s column, regarding the different local versions and cuts of movies and the problems that come with it. Thank you for the numerous comments and as many of you suggested, indeed, it also touches upon the issue of region coding on DVD - an issue I will touch upon in an upcoming edition of this column. It has become a hot topic this week once again, especially with the current raid of the police in the UK, which caused many angry British fellow DVD friends. Instead of simplifying the situation and stereotyping the “bad Americans”, we will cover the issue next week with insight, explaining what exacty happened and why it happened to begin with.

Today, I want to tell you about something that happened this week. I think it is extraordinary and exceedingly funny and I do not want to miss the opportunity to share the story with you. Our keyword for today’s column is the “Bruce Williams Show”. I can see some of you smiling already... Maybe you, too, have noticed the thread in our chat forum regarding this highly recognized national radio show, and who knows, maybe you have even listened to it this week. Unfortunately I have not personally had the pleasure to listen to the program, but here is a recount of what information we have been able to uncover.

This Wednesday night someone called the “Bruce Williams Show” live to talk to the host Bruce Williams about a small problem he pretended to have. The guy mentioned that earlier this year he started a website to write up reviews of DVD movies, just for the fun of it. Seemingly his website became an instant hit and he signed up advertisers, running banner ads on his site. The caller’s problem now was that he suggested he made so much money with this advertisement that he had a problem finding the right way to tax it. He obviously asked Bruce Williams for help on how to handle his funds. From what I have been told he did not mention the website’s URL, but mentioned he called it “DVD Review”, based on the information we have been able to gather from numerous email sent to us… do you see where I am getting at?

Okay, instantaneously a lot of people out there in radioland, maybe you included, concluded the call was from us. After all, our name is “DVD Review”, we are constantly attracting more and more readers and, yes, we have banner advertising on our site to cover our growing monthly expenses. Many people sent us emails, congratulating us on our success, mentioning what a terrific marketing idea it has been to call a live talk radio show and use it as an advertising medium. Now, while I am more than happy to agree with all the above, the funny thing is, we did not call the show. I have no idea, who the guy was calling into the “Bruce Williams Show” on Wednesday night asking for help on his financial situation. What I know though, is that the result was an immediate increase in traffic to our site of about 10% and that it caused quite a stir, judging by the incredible amount of email we received after the show had aired. So, whoever you are out there, thank you for calling the radio station. I really appreciate it, although a lot of people now believe, we are not even able to deal with our financial situation. The upside is however, that this call gave our site additional exposure in an inventive way, we had not even thought of.

Something is still bugging me about this whole issue however and I don’t know quite what to make of it. The guy calling the radio station is obviously clever enough to rake in $18.000 in six months from a private start-up website, but on the other hand he does not have enough business experience to deal with the result. He also seems to have forgotten his URL and even mentions the wrong name for his own site.  Anyhow, maybe he was just very excited about being live on national radio and tried to polish his numbers a bit.

To be frank, the thought has crossed our minds more than once, whether someone pulled this as a hoax to discredit our site, but it is hard to believe. So, here we are, still wondering what exactly happened that Wednesday night on the “Bruce Williams Show”. Was it an impostor and a hoax, or was it really just a guy with financial problems? We might never know, but if the ominous caller should read these lines by any chance, please send us an email. I would actually like to return the favor and publish the real URL of your website here in “DVD Review”. Many new readers came to visit “DVD Review” as a result of your call and I am sure, they too, would probably like to know, what the website was, they were originally looking for.

For today I would like welcome all our new and old readers and hope you enjoy these pages. From the emails we have received, that many of our new readers greatly enjoy “DVD Review”. I would like to thank them for the nice compliments and hope you will come back.
Don’t forget we have a feedback page where you can always let us know what you think. Simply click here, fill out the form and let us know, just what you really think of us. I you’re lucky, we will even give you a free DVD disc for doing it.

Take care everyone, and have a great week.

 October 5, 1998

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