No Olliemania Yet at Video Outlets

Based on a spot check of stores around the country, it’s still too early to tell how Olliemania is faring in video stores.

Since both MPI Home Video’s “Oliver North: Memo to History” ($19.95) and Turner/Forum’s “Lt. Col. Oliver North: His Story, CNN Highlights of the Iran-Contra Hearings” ($24.98) were rush-released, many stores don’t have copies yet.

“When something comes out with such short notice, there’s a lag time before it gets to the outlets,” MPI vice president for sales Jaffer Ali noted. “It may be two or three weeks before we know how well it’s doing.”

There have been varying reports about the success of the tapes. So far most of the interest has been in the MPI tape since its 102,000 copies were shipped last week. Turner/Forum’s 30,000 copies were reportedly shipped Tuesday.

According to video store dealers contacted Thursday by The Times, customers are asking for the Oliver North tapes and don’t distinguish between the MPI or the Turner/Forum tape.

According to a spokesman for Ingram Video, a West Coast distributor, there has only been mild interest in the MPI tape. His company has only sold 15 of their 45 copies. But, he added, “It’s too early to tell. There may be a demand down the line. Publicity is a factor. A lot of people don’t know the tapes are out there.”

Some store owners don’t even know these tapes are available. Three clerks at separate stores in the Midwest said they had never heard of the tapes and reported no customer inquiries. Other stores around the country reported modest sales and some inquiries. But none of the stores contacted in this informal survey reported blockbuster sales.

According to Turner’s Steve Chamberlain, there’s a big market among those who were working or on vacation and didn’t tape the hearings. The market, he added, is mainly for sales, not rentals.

Some store owners, not wanting to be stuck with unsold copies, are adopting a wait-and-see stance. “Were’re not jumping into this,” said clerk at a Boston video store. “There hasn’t been much interest here. But things might change. The hearings are still going on. The mood of the country might change about North if some bad things come out about him.”

Bootleggers, by the way, are already in the market. A San Francisco store owner said he’d been offered a chance to buy copies of a bootleg North tape. But he said he declined: “I didn’t order any of the real ones, so why should I order bootleg copies?”

MPI’s Ali also said that the firm has no doubts about the legality of its North tape. Questions arose last week over MPI’s rights to the broadcast of North’s testimony, Ali noted, but he said there has been no legal challenge.

The copyright issue “is a media creation,” Ali said. “One media person asked the question, and other media people picked up on it. It’s just a lot of media talk.”