What's next for BCI?

Re: What's next for BCI?

Well, go figure, I'm bummed that the "later Superfriends" underperformed. Hopefully that's not why there's been a huge break since the last release (Although Filmation's DC Guest Heroes just came out).

Well, I guess at least we can say a lot of those series didn't get canceled in the middle of the series.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Is there any chance BCI could release the shows they think will sell poorly in a limited run as is no frills sold exclusively from their website with a disclaimer about the poor quality, possibly on DVD-R?

Re: What's next for BCI?

I think you can find them on the internet

Re: What's next for BCI?

No. Not only are we not equipped to do that, but it's unlikely we'd be allowed to under the terms of the contract.

Re: What's next for BCI?

David, I know I asked this already but would you be interested in releasing the Universal-owned "Peacemakers"? Tom Berenger has an extensive career as well as a following that includes "Platoon", and you also got an interesting take on a "crime drama" set in the Old West (which also has great production values). It is the type of show that also appeals to the whole family. And you got your marketing right there...

As I said before, it ran for 8 episodes plus the 90-minute pilot, and there's a demand for it (especially among fans of Mr. Berenger).

"Peacemakers" (2003)

Re: What's next for BCI?

Why? That sounds like something that would be better served in an iTunes video set up.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Well, that's too bad about Bravestarr. I'm just glad it was completed. I also plan on buying Galaxy Rangers.

The 80's thing reminds me that WB is releasing Silverhawks on dvd this Fall. If that sells a small fraction of what Thundercats sold, I'd be surprised. Hopefully when it tanks they still release the second volume on dvd for fans of the show.

Re: What's next for BCI?

We put out the 2nd half of Bravestarr knowing it was going to lose money, but we didn't want to leave the fans hanging.

To me it holds up much better than any of the other 80s action cartoons. It's actually a very good show - and not just from a nostalgia standpoint.


I think they know already. It looks like it's just a multi-hubbed amaray case with some lousy artwork - a pretty big step down from Thundercats.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Probably not unless it came cheaply in a "package deal" with some other shows we really wanted. It's the type of show that will be lucky to sell 5000 units over it's lifetime, and it's going to be expensive to acquire, prep and market. I can't see it recouping it's initial advance.

Re: What's next for BCI?

That's an awesome approach I had hopes Shout would release the remaining eps of COPS, but they didn't.

Re: What's next for BCI?

But, they are releasing the rest of Jayce, right?


Anyways, on to Frightfully Funny, I did not buy the first one because I already have all of Ghost Busters and Groovy Ghoulies. Will the 2nd volume be double dipping these series as well or will it be all new to DVD material?

Re: What's next for BCI?

Mostly double-dipping at a lower MSRP. More Ghostbusters and Groovie Goolies.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey David

Do you think BCI could acquire the rights to the Universal Show New York Undercover, would love to see this get a release, seeing as this a Dick Wolf show surprised its not already on DVD.

Or perhaps more up BCI's street acquiring the rights from Universal for Earthworm Jim or Back To the Future: Animated Series

Re: What's next for BCI?

I know Shout Factory has released some of the Electric Company episodes as part of their deal with PBS and the Children's Television Workshop (now the Sesame Workshop) but has BCI thought to approach PBS to see if episodes of 321 Contact or Square One could be released?

I think a "Best Of" 321 Contact (which ran from 1980 - 1989) would sell well, as would complete series sets of some of the serialized drama segments that were a part of those shows (like "The Bloodhound Gang" and "Mathnet").

Re: What's next for BCI?

If we're talkin' kids educational TV, how about Mulligan Stew, which aired on TV (and in schools) throughout the 1970s? From the Wikipedia info, only six half-hours were produced, so it could be done on a single disc.

Re: What's next for BCI?

We'll probably stay far away from kids educational shows. Unless they are a current hit or a massive phenomenon from the past, they don't sell.

They don't tend to be a very good "nostalgia buy" and they aren't something that people that watched them as a kid buy for their kids now.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey, David....thanks for answering all these questions!

I've finally got a question for you. A co-worker's son is really into the He-Man cartoons. But, dad is really into Blu-ray. Is there any chance of the three volumes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe coming out on Blu-ray any time soon?

I know the SD release of Volume Three just happened a coupla weeks ago. Co-worker wants his son to have the cartoons...but would prefer to get them on BD (and not double-dip) if they are coming out soon.

Thanks again!

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey Mike.

I'll be surprised if we put out the Blu-Ray before next summer. Right now there have only been 2 successful Blu-Ray TV releases - Lost and Weeds. Everything else has done really, really poorly.

So with the BR market the way it is and with retailers being especially leery of TV on BR (and even more so from a smaller studio), it's just a bad idea right now. We can't justify the high expense to create the sets and then have that compounded by smallish orders and most likely sizable returns.

Hopefully after the holidays we'll get a better idea of where BR is trending, but my best guess is it's something we'll debut at Comic-Con next July.

We have every intention of doing it (Day Break too), but it has to be when the time is right.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey, David. While that's a valid point about the "television on Blu-ray Disc", I just feel the need to qualify it and point out that there hasn't been much of a choice yet for consumers in the TV-on-BD category.

Lost has done well because of the popularity of the show, combined with the fact that this release is THE reference-quality Blu-ray release which can really show off how terrific 1080p looks compared to DVD, or any standard-def version of this show (or any other show). Weeds is also a good (and popular) show that looks great on hi-def, but also is the only TV series where the show has more than one season, that also has EVERY season done so far made available quickly on Blu-ray Disc, and at easy-to-bear prices.

The rest are shows that are only a season long so far, and may have gotten great critical acclaim, but are not as widely popular (Damages, Mad Men). Or popular shows that people have been collecting on DVD, but not all seasons are available on Blu-ray, and those that are have been priced too high (Smallville, Sopranos, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Prison Break). I can't tell you how many people tell me they would get every season of Smallville on BD if they were all available (and at a price they could deal with), but they generally don't want "some on DVD and some on BD", so they stick with DVDs for now, especially at the price the early seasons have been marked down to (there's actually a thread about this here on the HTF right now!).

Then there are one-shot titles that may not count as "TV on BD" on the retailers' sales metrics lists that you're looking at (Stargate: Continuum, Batman: Gotham Knight, Justice League: The New Frontier); these are probably categorized as "DTV movies". And what about mini-series with somewhat limited appeal to a particular genre, of either spies or westerns, like The Company, Broken Trail, Lonesome Dove?

Of course, it doesn't help when the Blu-ray release actually pisses people off. Such as releases, both out and coming out, from the BBC where the 1st season is being released on Blu at the same time the 2nd season is being released on DVD, and people (like me!) who already own the 1st Season DVD are loathe to upgrade to the first season on Blu at a such a high price tag (Robin Hood, Torchwood). Or like Masters of Horror, which unnecessarily (as far as fans are concerned) broke the first season into 4 separate "volumes" on BD. Or like today's release of Justice League - Season 1, which STILL doesn't provide the OAR widescreen video - even on hi-def! - that many fans have been longing for, and as the producer of the show prefers for it per public statement (I'm giving this release a skip for precisely that reason).

Everything else is pretty much nature, nature, nature. Planet Earth has sold a ton, and looks gorgeous. But how much of that sort of thing will the buying public, in reality, add to their collection? The run-down includes Galapagos, Ganges, Discovery Atlas (4 releases), Fearless Planet, Wild China, Earth: The Biography, Human Body: Pushing the Limits, Weather Channel's Epic Conditions and upcoming releases The Universe and When We Left The Earth: The NASA Missions.

The upcoming releases of TV-on-BD titles might be a crop that will open the eyes of both retailers and studios to the category. Chuck, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Band of Brothers and Futurama: Bender's Game are likely to do well enough to make retailers sit up and take notice. In all honesty, I'm a bit more doubtful of releases like Grey's Anatomy and Supernatural, since they are picking up mid-series with no hi-def releases of the earlier seasons in sight (see the Smallville discussion above).

I know I've missed a few TV-on-BD releases here that have release dates in the past, present and future (Afro Samurai comes to mind), but you get the idea. So far the consumers have not necessarily been given the best crop of choices, but things are starting to grow and expand in this field. That's okay; it didn't happen automatically for DVDs, either. The players hit the market in 1997, and while there was a small handful of TV-DVD titles that year (starting with July's Beavis And Butt-Head - The Final Judgment...from Sony's Music CD division!), the category didn't really start to take off until after Fox's mid-2000 release of X-Files - The Complete 1st Season became the "killer app". So TV-on-BD also has needed some time to find its stride, and - in my opinion - it's beginning to happen.

Hopefully it snowballs, because what I see - daily - are people who are upset that they can watch something in hi-def on their television, but have to settle for standard def DVD releases of the same program. And those people are starting to give those DVD releases a skip, waiting for the Blu-ray Discs. Fans of the shows believe (i.e., "know", at least in their minds) that titles like Star Trek: TOS (Remastered), Battlestar Galactica, Reaper and others "HAVE" to come to Blu-ray sometime in the near future, so they would rather wait for the hi-def version.


Good info, and I hope you don't mind that I'll be passing this on to my readers.

Re: What's next for BCI?

You make very valid points, but most of these examples reinforce my point that consumers are not yet ready to adopt Blu-Ray for TV. The Blu-Rays for Damages and Mad Men did roughly 10% of Standard Def. Stargate: Continuum and Lonesome Dove even worse. The DTVs did better, but those fall more into the "movie" category and they performed like it.

I totally get your point on shows like Rescue Me, Sopranos, Nip/Tuck and Smallville where only the most recent seasons are available on Blu-Ray. It's frustrating, but I can't imagine the studios are chomping at the bit to release the earlier seasons when the ones they put out are doing so poorly. I mean scary low numbers. That's telling the studios that the "collector mentality" of having all the boxes be the same is more important to people than having a mismatched set - even if it's at a sacrifice of quality.

I do think it's going to come around, but it's going to be slow. The majority or consumers are still more than happy with DVD quality and we're going to have to see drastic price reductions before Blu-Ray is able to be anything more than a niche category. I find in my day-to-day business that a lot of people still don't know what Blu-Ray is or why they would want it. Comic-Con really opened my eyes to that as it came up with dozens of people over the 5 days I worked the show.

So at this point for small studios, it doesn't make sense to produce something that is significantly more expensive to create only to generate 10% of the sales.

When things turn around, we'll be ready for it.


Absolutely.

Re: What's next for BCI?

hey David just wondering if you saw my question



Do you think BCI could acquire the rights to the Universal Show New York Undercover, would love to see this get a release, seeing as this a Dick Wolf show surprised its not already on DVD.

Or perhaps more up BCI's street acquiring the rights from Universal for Earthworm Jim or Back To the Future: Animated Series

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey Nikki,

New York Undercover is unlikely. It falls into that area of combining being off the air for a decade and not really having a bankable cast. It's the type of show that sounds great genre-wise, but ends up moving around 5000 units.

Back to the Future would be great - it has a much bigger audience and the movie DVDs were a huge success. I personally like Earthworm Jim a lot, but I'm not sure how it would do. Very good voice cast, smart show, but really out of the public eye. If the remake comes to be in 2010, it could become a hot property.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Did Super Mario really do that badly ? Because Shout kept releasing it to completion, which doesn't make sense since they're more likely to drop a series (out of necessity--they aren't as likely to do something like you guys did with Bravestarr and complete it despite the loss being almost a sure thing).

I hope BCI continues to release some animation in the future. In the past I bought Space Sentinels/Freedom Force, He-Man Best Of, and She-Ra Secret of the Sword/Best Of. More recently (a few months back) I got Flash Gordon, Blackstar, and Bravestarr Best Of. Half of those were blind buys (the pre-He-Man years stuff), but they were so affordable I didn't mind taking the risk on 'em.

I plan on buying pretty much every other action-adventure cartoon in BCI's catalogue eventually, but you can only buy so much at a time, y'know ? I can't get through them quick enough to justify buying too many at once (I still have all of Voltron that I haven't touched yet, plus a few other cartoons).

Re: What's next for BCI?

David,
Does BCI have a strong line up of titles ready to release on dvd for the fourth quarter of this year, and early next year?

I know the Filmation releases you guys had were phenomenal, and a once in a lifetime deal. I don't want to know specifics, but rather if there is something cool like the Filmation deal in the works. The retro old-school stuff is what I usually go for. Aside from the newer He-Man releases, it's been pretty quiet on the BCI front lately.

Thanks.

Re: What's next for BCI?

I misremembered that one. It actually did quite well.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey Bryan,

Not a lot of animated stuff on the schedule. We have a few animated titles set and some others we're negotiating on.

We have a ton of stuff upcoming, but it's more movie based. A lot of pretty big Asian titles and quite a bit of US studio stuff.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey, David. Do you think FIlmation's Flash Gordon did well enough to justify releasing the original 2-hour 'pilot' movie? Andy Mangels told me quite some time ago that if sale were good enough, BCI might look into it.

Some of you may wonder "why release the pilot movie"? The reason is that although much of the footage is split up amongs the first half-dozen or so of the 30-minute episodes, the 2-hour movie contains several scenes/footage not contained in any of the episodes (and likewise, the episodes contain scenes and/or alternate footage not in the movie).

Re: What's next for BCI?

I'm not sure if anyone knows who has the rights to it. Hearst Entertainment (who owns the Flash Gordon cartoon) doesn't have it. Entertainment Rights (who owns most of the Filmation library) doesn't either.

Ideally we would've included it with the FG DVDs, but were unable to find it.

Re: What's next for BCI?

Hey, David, what are the future gameshow releases from BCI going to be? I know about Game Show Moments Gone Bananas. What's after that? Match Game, Price is Right, what? Will there be a second volume of Price Is Right?



Trevor

Re: What's next for BCI?

Ooooooh. I'd be in for that! I'd love to see more variety of Barker shows from different decades...plus, of course, some highlights/bloopers, etc.