Unless there is another reason, no money. Shine Ltd is the main sponsor, but the BBC also funds and with the Olympics this year, the BBC is pretty tight on budget. Maybe they can't afford sending the Merlin people to France.
I have to admit though, five series would be OK for me. I will miss "Merlin", but truth be told, the writers lost inspiration after the 3rd series. Better to go out with a bang than with dragged whimpers. Just MHO.
The Beeb only has to provide a rather small amount of (licence fee) money and Shine is the British (executive) production company responsible for making the show.
The lion's share comes from FremantleMedia, the biggest European production company. Fremantle also holds all franchise rights, DVD rights for the UK (and probably other countries) and takes care of the international distribution of the show, that's where they 'make' money. Of course Shine'll have a budget for each episode and it's TPTB's job to have an eye on that but I doubt the BBC cuts affect the show very much and the Beeb wouldn't be responsible to pay for the actors to attend conventions, that's either Shine's or Fremantle's thing.
It's interesting that people bring up the financial aspect. If I remember, the first time there was a Merlin panel at SDCC (2010), only Colin and Tony were invited by the Merlin producers to participate, with a video of Bradley conducting an interview shown during the panel. The next year Bradley and Katie were brought in to join Colin and Tony, but Angel was not included (instead she got to do a video interview as Bradley had done the year before
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Why I'm not surprised. If they are not prepared to share any details and cannot answer any qeustions, then there is no point. All the boring conversations already happened time and time again over the last 4 years and they do not need to attract more fans, they have anough people hooked already.
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I'm curious to know what other guests they have in mind!
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I have to admit though, five series would be OK for me. I will miss "Merlin", but truth be told, the writers lost inspiration after the 3rd series. Better to go out with a bang than with dragged whimpers. Just MHO.
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The lion's share comes from FremantleMedia, the biggest European production company. Fremantle also holds all franchise rights, DVD rights for the UK (and probably other countries) and takes care of the international distribution of the show, that's where they 'make' money. Of course Shine'll have a budget for each episode and it's TPTB's job to have an eye on that but I doubt the BBC cuts affect the show very much and the Beeb wouldn't be responsible to pay for the actors to attend conventions, that's either Shine's or Fremantle's thing.
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