Season 5 of MTM Show. Is This a Gamble (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Ed]

I see on TV Shows On DVD that Amazon is taking orders for season 5 of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I guess we made enough noise that we caught someones attention. But are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Or somewhere higher? Will we see a season 6 and 7 and who knows when? Will we go from season 5 to "The Complete Series". Which of course will cost us even more money since we bought another season that will be repeated. Ok, we do what they want us to do. WE GAMBLE. My suggestion. A great number of folks voiced an openion on that past thread. Ladies and gentlemen, we gotta support Mary and Lou and get that 5th season.

 

[Montytc]

I am sure it would be a good thing if the 5th season showed surprisingly strong sales.

 

[cajunhillbilly]

I preordered it as soon as I saw the news.

 

[juda]

This is on my preorder list too, great show

 

[Jack P]

My favorite moment of the entire series is in S5 when Ted gets caught up in football betting and he delivers that hilarious line of panic, "TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I doubt they'd go from Season 5 to the Complete Series, after the uproar that was caused by the rumor they might go from Season 4 to the Complete Series.

Since interest in completing the series was the result of Oprah Winfrey having the cast on her show, and since I'm sure Oprah wants the entire series to be released, she can make it all come true by buying up thousands of copies and giving them away. According to Forbes, in 2008 her personal income was $5,000,000 a week. With only one week's income, she can buy 250,000 copies of Season 5. That alone should be enough to ensure a Season 6.

 

[sestamuch]

Wowzers. She can push the market any way she wants.

 

[David Rain]

Right now this is the only way to get Season 5. There's no guarantee that a complete series will ever be released. If you're willing to hold off on buying this one until you see if a complete series set comes out then you'll have saved yourself from double-dipping on yet another season. However, if enough people avoid this release and the sales are low then you are less likely to see Season 6 or the complete series.

 

[Paul_Scott]

I'll buy this set as I have the first four, however it strikes me how clueless Fox is about this whole thing.
The first four sets sell poorly
so
Fox decides to package all the previous releases together with a lesser amount of unreleased content so they can then charge a high msrp to offset weak sales.
They finally catch on that this is unfairly and stupidly gouging the only people who were actually supporting the releases all along
so
rather than making an all-in-one package of the last three seasons with which they can they set a 3x higher msrp (than the individual sets), they revert back to the sales model that was making no one happy- not them or us. When are these suits going to catch a clue? The fan base wants the rest of the series. They DO NOT want to pay to rebuy the material they already own. Is it me or is the reconciliation between everyones needs here pretty damn clear?
Is this rocket science?

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I'd guess if they sell Seasons 5-7 as a package, they'll only sell to the series' hardcore fans, and it has been made clear to them that there definitely aren't enough of them to make it profitable.

When they knew the Complete Series would anger those fans, it seems the only option left to them was to revert to the traditional one season at a time system.

I still say Oprah Winfrey should subsidize the darn thing already.

-------------------
"Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around ..." - Thornton Wilder

 

[DavidHAN]

Pre-ordered mine today. Hope to see the last two seasons at some point in the future. The price was right. Can't really argue with 21 bucks for some Ted Baxter hilarity!

 

[MatthewA]

My pre-order for The Complete Series was cancelled by Amazon.com for what it's worth.

Oprah pushed for this, and she better not let it fail, but the rest of us need to do our part and actually buy it.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Yikes! You guys complain if it doesn't come out; you complain if it does come out. Yikes, I tell you--Yikes!

 

[JohnMor]

Well, it's more important that Fox "do right" by the customers, even if that means Seasons 6 & 7 never get released. Because the Complete Series Set would have "forced" people who didn't want to to double dip against their will.

We'll see what the future brings... Hopefully it's all remaining seasons in one form or another.

 

[moogaboo]

Are "series" sets even selling that well these days? I always wonder who has the money to splash out on those things. Do we even know that the MTM series set was cancelled due to fans' complaints and not because, financially, it was a bad idea? That seems just as likely a reason as any.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Yes, it seemed like a bad idea financially after all those complaints about it on Amazon (and here).

 

[The Obsolete Man]

That means nothing.

It's the internet, and as much as we'd like to believe we have some influence, the people who post on Amazon and on message boards are just a blip on the sales radar.

I would sincerely hope Fox's decisions were not based on Amazon reviews. I mean, it could've been ten very vocal people under a dozen different names apiece creating all of the bad reviews. You can't know with the internet.

Now, if they floated it to retailers, and the retailers didn't bite, that's a more acceptable reason (IMO) to cancel the complete box set for the time being.

...But not the internet.

 

[sestamuch]

For every few dozen people booing there can be thousands more wanting it, people on amazon message boards are just a tiny fraction as you say.

 

[MohanShankar]

gr8 tnx ..nice post bro

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Yeah, but ...

Those reactions on Amazon were very strong.

Fans of the series would check the Amazon listing, right? People who didn't give a hoot about The MTM Show wouldn't even look at the page, much less comment.

And I'd say it's more likely than not that most of the comments were from different people, as opposed to one crank writing ten negative comments under ten different names.

I don't know where this idea came from that the Internet, probably the most powerful communication device since the invention of the printing press, means nothing to companies.

I bet they DO read comments on Amazon -- and those concerning the proposed Complete Series release of The MTM Show were so powerfully negative, it wouldn't surprise me if they were a major part in the decision to forget about a Complete Series set until Seasons 5, 6 and 7 were released separately.

I'm not a fan of corporations, but there has to be some limit to how selfish and uncaring they are!