Whysome US shows sell in Canada? (1 Viewer)

[JamesSmith]

Dear Guys:


I'm trying to figure out why some programs (Kate & Allie, McMillian and Wife (second season), why were made and produced in the U.S. get Canadian releases as opposed to more general region 1 releases?


I know the RoboCop tv show just came out on DVD this week, and it was produced in Canada (by the way I enjoyed the series), but won't be released here in the States.


It's not fair I tell you.


Can anybody tell me why this is?


Just curious?


James

 

[TV_Fan]

Well, both Kate & Allie & McMillian and Wife DID get their first seasons released in the US but apparently didn't sell well enough for Universal to continue. Universal only had the US rights to Kate & Allie, not Canadian, and therefore VEI was able to license the complete series from the Canadian rights holder. As for McMillian and Wife, VEI decided to license season 2 (and hopefully beyond) from Universal. They are also releasing McMillian and Wife in the US later in the year, by the way. VEI is a much smaller company and therefore they can sell less copies of a set than Universal and still consider it a sucess.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by JamesSmith


It's not fair I tell you.

Since Canada and the US are both Region 1 and NTSC, you don't even have to have a region-player to enjoy these, so instead of worrying about Canadian releases, you can easily order them online and enjoy them. CDPlus even ship out their US orders from a New York warehouse.


At least they're coming out in the same region and TV standard to allow anyone in the US with a DVD player to be able to watch. Some other worldwide exclusives, such as the ABC thriller Darkroom and a bunch of animated '70s Marvel Comics cartoons, were released only in other regions and in PAL, meaning a region-free player is required for those.


Unless you wanting to buy them in a brick and mortar store (which for these old shows might've been unlikely anyway), I don't really see why it's something to get worked up about.

 

[JoshuaB.]

Many Canadian etailers ship to the USA, so it's not an issue. Strangely, I never think that it's "unfair" on the rare time there's an American exclusive DVD/BD release--I simply order it from an American etailer like Amazon. Just be forewarned: Robocop and the other 90s genre shows being released in Canada only come from Alliance, our biggest DVD distributor, and the AV quality may not be of the best quality.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

one other "good" thing about regional exclusives: it's sometimes the only way a show will get released in the first place. Grant at Madman (an Australian company) told me one of the things they look for when choosing obscure shows is whether or not they've been released anywhere else. If if weren't for smaller companies like their's depending on international customers importing their wares, there would probably still be no DVD release of Darkroom, for example.

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney

one other "good" thing about regional exclusives: it's sometimes the only way a show will get released in the first place. Grant at Madman (an Australian company) told me one of the things they look for when choosing obscure shows is whether or not they've been released anywhere else. If if weren't for smaller companies like their's depending on international customers importing their wares, there would probably still be no DVD release of Darkroom, for example.

It makes you wonder what % of sales a company like Madman does overseas beyond Australia/New Zealand.