TV Punditry: RIP-OFF ALERT

I have just returned from being interviewed by the 24-hour business news channel CNBC Europe. It was a very short interview about financial results, and given that it was my first "live" interview ever, I think I managed to do a pretty decent job. As such, I was keen to obtain a video or DVD copy of the show to keep for posterity and shameless ego-stroking. Little did I know that I was about to discover a nice little rip-off scheme in the process.

As you might imagine, the demand for video recordings of shows by guests who appear on CNBC is pretty high, so they have to outsource the production demand to another company, Executive Interviews. If this was the case, I figured it probably wouldn't be free, but that was alright by me, as it would only be a nominal charge. Er, wrong! When I received a call from someone at Executive Interviews, I was informed that if I wanted to buy a copy of my interview (which lasted for barely two minutes, let's not forget), I would have to pay £95 for the privilege, and over £100 if I wanted to be able to access it via a secure website.

So, let me get this straight. I agree to go on your show to help fill up your airtime by giving my expert opinion on something... and I'm the one who gets charged through the nose to see it? I don't think so, lady. True, as you say, I can always get my company to pay for it instead. But I don't want them to keep it, I want to keep it for myself. Is that so wrong? Obviously that's not going to happen now, but this sort of thing should definitely be made public. After all, I did ask several people at the station before the show whether I would be able to obtain a copy afterwards, and they all said yes. They just neglected to tell me it would cost nearly 100 quid. Next time I might as well just sign up to Sky Digital for a year and videotape it myself - it'd certainly be cheaper than this bollocks.