Stalled series? There's Hope!

Re: Stalled series? There's Hope!

I think the future for TV shows on DVD will probably eventually go the boutique route along the lines of Time-Life, with complete series being released at once and in gift packaging. One could argue this should have been the pattern from the beginning, with studios showing more confidence in their product and distributing series as an entire set with commensurate pricing. As far as profitability goes I'm sure they would have taken a hit doing it this way, but they had to have enough marketing foresight to see that the cash cow of TV on DVD was not going to last forever. In other words, they may not have engendered the same success as they have with the quantity of first season sets sold, but in the long run it might have been less of a gamble had they appealed to the true fans of a given series from the very start instead of the potentially fickle casual fans and all their impulse buys.

I'm sure more learned minds than mine will come up with plenty of reasons why the studios would consider such a measure to be absolute folly, but we may yet see these kind of complete series releases, either from the studios directly, or through an intermediary like Time-Life. As series runs on home video are only now being tested within the last few years, save for the Time-Life VHS sets, there is no predicting what will happen as the marketplace constantly evolves. The same way that no one ever foresaw the initial phenomenal success of TV on DVD, no one apparently saw the eventual collapse of it. If it is to succeed in any fashion and not become a home video dinosaur, it may have to scale back on expectation and start re-inventing itself as a niche product with a small, but devoted following.

Re: Stalled series? There's Hope!

Duplicate post.

Re: Stalled series? There's Hope!

Dave, I'm assuming that you and Gord deal primarily with the marketing people as opposed to the operations/executive types. Since these individuals' job security revolves around proving their value as marketeers there may be some professional one-upsmanship going on from their standpoint. After all, if the business leaders decide that TVSonDVD.com or some other internet outlet can be as effective at getting the word out about a product at a lower cost then they may consider outsourcing the work to entities such as yourself. This is just a thought; I know you didn't want to drag the conversation out and I wouldn't blame you if didn't want to touch this comment with a 10 foot pole

To address some other comments in this thread. Although we may disagree with or be disappointed by some of the decisions made by the various studios, they are not idiots. The aforementioned marketing staffs have bundles of sales data showing the typical life cycle of a product (X% of sales in month 1, Y% in the first 6 months, etc.) as well as where their sales are coming from (internet, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.). They also have access to research showing which prospective titles are most likely to do well once brought to market. To suggest they ignore this data borders on the ludicrous.

Re: Stalled series? There's Hope!

Very well said.

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No doubt, and studios HAVE to recognize that. But unfortunately the reaction may be to "make less, if noone can afford to buy them". That may be "less product, period", or that may be "less (and therefore cheaper) content per release"; i.e. more half-season sets...or even to break the seasons into smaller portions like thirds or quarters! I've been nervous that this kind of thing may happen...and nervous about it for quite a while now, especially with some of the older shows that run 30+ episodes for a single season. When we see that "Season 1, Volume 3" title tag, then all hell's gonna break loose.


The latter is certainly a debatable: while it's easy to think "hey, bootleggers wouldn't be sellling those full-series sets if it wasn't profitable for them", there's also a very valid point that they have much less of an overhead, too. Hey, it's not like they're paying for licenses, royalties, remastering, or anything else that goes into a studio budge.

As for the former point, there's certainly something to be said for that. But as I indicated, sometimes a studio just doesn't have the data they need right away to make a decision. If you don't know how Season 1 sold yet, you may have to wait for that data to come in before you can decide on green-lighting Season 2, y'know?


Ah, but you're missing an entire category, and a pretty darn big one: the CASUAL FAN. The person who likes a show, gets it on DVD, then watches those episodes and realizes that this is enough for them. Perfect example here is the release of The Andy Griffith Show. I had three co-workers (back before TSoD became a full-time job for me) who loved, loved, LOVED that show, and always asked when the DVDs would come out. When it came out, two of them bought it, loved it, and purchased ever release on street date. The third guy bought Season 1, and enjoyed it, but realized "this is enough for me" and didn't feel the need to own further episodes. Even though his favorite episode wasn't in that season; it was a few later. He didn't care; what he had was good enough. If he had a hankerin' for some Andy, he could scratch that itch.

Other "fans" buy the first season, and realize that it doesn't hold up to their memories and isn't enjoyable any more, so they never buy more releases. Still others are picked up by non-fans, as a gift for a fan (say, a mom or dad, or a grandparent) who would never buy it for themselves. Well, having bought the first release for that person, the gift-giver isn't committed to buying the rest of the seasons for this fan...and whatever reasons (often financial) that prevented the fan from buying it themselves in the first place, persist and keep them from picking up more seasons.

Add that to the people who don't buy subsequent seasons because of dissatisfaction with prices or quality, or irritation at half-season sets or edits or music changes, or people who just haven't gotten around to buying the second season or maybe never got around to finishing watching the first season, or maybe never even got word that more seasons were coming out because they're not online all the time like we are, etc.; there are LOTS of reasons why further releases don't sell as well as the first release. I'm sure we could add tons more reasons to the list than I just stated here.


If my post made it sound like that's the case, then I apologize. I don't think I said that, though. I've seen LOTS of examples of studios, including CBS/Par, Sony, Warner, Fox, and others, who will indicate to us many months, or even years!, after a title's release that they are still looking at sales figures for that title and waiting for it to get above a certain mark before making a decision on a further release. It's often "never too late" in some cases for a studio to un-stall a stalled show because the numbers finally made it. But how long it took will certainly factor into the decision, yes? And obviously it means a decision is made much later; the point I was trying to make had to do with why the studio looks at the earliest sales data to make the quickest decisions on whether to move forward with the next release.


I think that there's certainly room for this, and more of it...but that it will never take the place of people running down the street to Wal-Mart or Best Buy to pick up the latest and greatest.


Okay, I'll dare to "touch it"!

Yes and no on the marketing people; let's just say "it depends on the studio". Mostly "yes", though. What I guess most people don't know is that Gord primarily talks to the studio folk, though I also do sometimes (especially at the independent companies; I leave the majors to Gordo). I more often talk to the "retailer friends," "anonymous sources" and "industry contacts"...you know, the "spies".

But yeah, we recognize that some of the people we deal with are worried about their jobs. However, I am also frankly worried about mine; I want TVGuide.com to renew my contract, so that means I need to bring da' funk.


Agreed; Steve...O's second paragraph is dead-on.

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Without a doubt, i can be a casual fan myself. I can name a dozen shows i own that i am one and done with! I only wanted the first season of Rawhide. Sure, the studio made it easy for me to quit when they went to split seasons after season 1. I stopped with season 3 of Mission: Impossible, season 4 of Hawaii Five-0, season 5 of Star Trek: TNG (and i am a huge Trek fan!)

Why? Time and money! Damn guys, four seasons of a show is just about 100 episodes! And i have, maybe 40 or 50 different shows on DVD. True, most didnt even run 1 full season, not to mention 5 or 10 seasons. But really, how many times will i be able to watch what i already have? I am in my mid 40s now, at best i have another 40 or so years left to watch TV, and i still have some wants sixmilliondallarman...so i have to draw a line for myself too!

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Hi Gord, love your site btw...

You may want to inquire as to what the wait was between Season One and Season Two, much less Season Four. If it was over a year or two wait, there's your answer for the drop off.

The average consumer has a very limited attention span (something Marketing should already know, this is common sense 101) and making them wait over a year or two between releases makes them lose interest, contributing greatly to the drop off in sales. Average Joe doesn't want to wait YEARS for a show to reach completion and once they've seen the years between S1 and S4, many just say F*** it.

Also, As history has proven these past ten years, for many of us, continuing to buy the shows doesn't guarantee the show will be continued either.

So many of us fans have come to the conclusion that even with our continued support, the shows still don't come out... and we've had ten years worth of purchasing these things to prove our point.

With that, I've come to learn that its not my responsibility to buy a show just to see it released to completion because more often than not, my continued support does not make a dent in a studios 'sales expectations'.

Worse, for the shows many of us did support seasonaly that do reach completion, a studio then releases a complete box set with extras and bonuses unavailable in the individual releases, which to me, is a slap to the consumers who supported the releases long enough even to warrant a full box set.

Many people come here stating with great conviction that if we want the shows, we should or need to buy them no matter how poorly or uneconomical the studios release them (The Paramount Volume set thing and the way Paramount is releasing them is quite costly to the consumer).

And as stated above, the long wait -- sometimes, years, between seasoned releases impacts the sales levels immensely.
Studios do little or no advertising to let a consumer know the product is out there. Since most of the average joes do not come to internet sites to find out product release dates, how are consumers supposed to know that Season 3 of their favorite show is out now when its been almost 3 years since the prior release (Party of Five anyone?). People cannot buy what they don't know is out and the years between releases kills demand.

Maybe other studios should Get Smart and start releasing their product complete to combat this once insolvable dilema. I understand the studios problem but its easy to blame the consumers for a product line not selling to expectations. They need to accept responsibilty that the way they are releasing contributes greatly to sales for a studio exists to serve consumers, not the other way around.

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Ya know? It's funny- with the shows that I'm really fanatical about- like All In The Family, I faithfully pre-order to receive them on street date...not caring that I'll pay more this way. I'm just so anxious to get 'em, and want to show my avid support, so that future seasons will be released.

With my "2nd tier" shows, I'll wait until quite a few seasons are out...and then wait for a good sale, and snap up all of the available seasons at once. (Gotta love the Amazon sale page on TVShowsonDVD, and DVDpricesearch.com!).

Ironically, it seems that the shows I loyally bought right away/pre-ordered for street date....they're always the ones that get stalled!

Like RickER, I'm also in my mid-40's....but I kind of take the opposite view than that of RickER: I want complete series of my favorite shows, because I do not watch modern TV, and I am very fussy as to what I do watch.....and I want to be able to watch and enjoy ALL the eps of my favorite shows- the more eps, the better, because that way I can watch one a day, and maybe take 6 months to get through them...and then start over again, and that way, I never get tired of the show. Whereas with just a couple of seasons...ya just watch the same few eps over and over, and get tired of 'em, while yearning to see the other unreleased ones.

Up until recently, I used to keep a list of the shows i wanted, and when i saw them on sale, I'd buy one (and always many seasons at one time)...and while doing that, if new releases of my real favorites came out, I'd order the single season of that too.

But lately, I just stopped looking for the sales, and have just stopped buying DVDs, period. I'm just so turned off by the stalls and long waits....the multi-volume, single-season releases...edits/deletion......and the lack of complete series releases.

I'm just disgusted and turned off. And while just one consumer might not exactly make or break a dtudio, I can't help but wonder how many thousands of others must feel the way that I do.

And in this economy, the studios should really be courting us hardcore fans, because we're the ones who will keep purchasing the DVDs, whereas a lot of more casual fans will be using that money for gas and food instead.

Most recently, I was planning on purchasing the complete series of Seinfeld, and the almost complete Cheers...but I'm just so turned off/annoyed, that I'm not even thinking about it now. Oh, sure, if I see a really good sale this winter, I may still buy them....but had the studios treated us better and not killed our enthusiasm, I probably would've been buying those series now.

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....and the absolute worst case of a studio killing it's own sales goes to: BFS!!!

....for their American release of the first season of the wonderful Austrailian sit-com Mother And Son. This first season contains only SEVEN 1/2 hour episodes and cost $27. It has been well over 2 years since it was released, with no subsequent seasons on the horizon- and little wonder why! Who's gonna spend a fortune buying this series in dribs and drabs at that price? The series only consists of about 40 eps- and in Austrailia, the complete series is already out on R4 discs.

Unless i get a region-free DVD player, I doubt I'll ever see fuiture seasons of this show released here. (Understandable, since the show was very obscure here...while it was a very popular all-time classic in Austrailia).

And I KNEW this would happen when I saw the price of that first season!!! Instead of enjoying the show that I love so much, it sits here as a white elephant- a testament to the lunacy of the studios!

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BTW Gord,

If its modern television, most of those dvds come out on some kind of basis, whether its quarterly, 2x a year or what.

Classic television isn't released on any schedule whatsoever. With shows like Jeffersons (which saw extremely long waits between S1-3, S4), All In The Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Party of Five and tons upon tons of others, there were long classic waits between releases, even seasons one and two.

While I know its costly to advertise, studios cannot realistically expect these things to sell themselves, especially when consumers are clueless as to when the next release is supposed to come out, worse when it is a year or three between seasons so it isn't too surprising there is a 70% drop off between S1 shows and S2.

To meet their sales expectations, studios need more than the hard core collectors to buy and the average joe consumer has much better things to do than to sit around and wait many, many, many months -- a year or more -- for a new release.

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This brings up a good point, a friend of mine was telling me he was having a hell of a time getting good discs of Gunsmoke season 2 vol. 1. They were all scratched, stepped on, wouldnt play, stuff like that...and they were new discs to boot. Anyway, i told him i stopped buying DVD-18s because of the problems with them, and i also dont like buggard up brand new discs. So, when it ceases to be fun, when it becomes stressful, just to get good product for your hard earned cash, its time to let it go, and dont buy their cheap s**t. I have other things to spend my money on. We dont HAVE to buy it if its crap.

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Very true, RickER! Within the last year, I've found myself having to exchange quite a few DVDs- something which I had never had to do in the past. A while back I purchased the entire series of Little House On The Prairie....and had to end up exchanging HALF of the season sets because of damaged dics!!! 2 seasons out of 5 that purchased of The Simpsons had to go back..... I mean, what is going on?! 2 out of 4 of The Odd Couple.....

If we were discussing this a year ago, I would've said that I've never had a problem with defective discs.

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another great example is Universal's treatment of Kate And Allie. Before the set was even released, I called it out and predicted that the show would be abandoned (6 episodes, several which were syndicated edits, for $30, same price as many full sitcom seasons), yet the show has been doing a great job in Canada because VCI was smart enough to release seasons 1 and 2 together.

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YIKES! That even beats Mother And Son!!! You really have to wonder what kind of incompetants are running these studios! I wouldn't pay $30 or even $15 for only 6 eps of any show!

Now I see from this board that Cannon has been released.....but as a split season! -Another one i wouldn't mind having(Haven't seen that show in decades!) but won't be buying because of the absurd marketing!

Truly disgraceful!

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Paramount is another WTF studio after that Fugitive thing. I might have bought the show at some point, but not now. That's a different issue. Split season sets strike me as being penny wise and pound foolish.

Kate and Allie is lucky because Universal, who did it in the USA, only has domestic rights and doesn't own it outright. FremantleMedia, successor in interest to the production company, does.

Fans don't roll over and say "thank you sir, may I have another" to everything the studio does. Unfortunately, market research doesn't take that into account.

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So there isn't a dropoff between sales of season sets of current shows?Each season,of a current show,sells just as much,or more,than the previous season?

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I'm sure there's less of a drop off (or at least, it is still selling enough copies to keep the studio happy) between seasons of current shows or studios would be pulling the plug on current series as quickly as they do on older ones.

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I'd love to see the sales statistics of the currently-on-TV crap, vs. the classics!

I can imagine lots of people going out of their way to buy favorite shows that are no longer airing...shows that they may not have seen for many years.....but how many people buy shows that are currently on...that they can watch repeats of, and which will be run for years to come in syndication?

I'd put my money on the classics! -especially as the economy goes south.

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I purchased all of "Hardcastle and McCormick," an ABC series that was on during my childhood (1983-86), and as such, it is the only completed series that I have. VEI of Toronto did a great job with that series, even though there weren't any bonuses until the #3 release, and even then, it was just a photo gallery. It also had some minor edits in the first two releases-- one episode of the first did not have the opening titles, and one of the second did have the titles, but without the "how Milt and Mark met" segment. What really matters, though, is that VEI, I believe, was really committed where the music was concerned. Even though the studio only mentioned the music on the back of the S2 release, I do believe that VEI did keep all the music on all the releases. In the last season, VEI changed packaging-- the first couple of seasons were 5 discs among 3 slim cases, but in the third and final, they changed it to a clear Amaray case, with the first disc in its own compartment on the left as the case was opened, and the last four stacked atop each other. They also changed the disc labeling-- in the first two, while the packages were labeled "The Complete First Season" and "The Complete Second Season," it was labeled "Season One" and "Season Two" on the spine of each case, the spine of the box, and each individual disc. However, for the third, they still used a "Season Three" label on the spine of the box, but the discs were now the same labeling as the front of the box-- they were now called "The Complete Third and Final Season." The change in direction on packaging, however, did not take much away from the fact that I, for one, had my first completed series. Like I said, VEI of Toronto did release all of "Hardcastle," in a very timely manner and with (I believe) all the music cleared, and I believe that they should get a blue ribbon for that.

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Why do you feel the need to spit on current TV shows to defend the classics? I like the classics a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying some of TV's current offerings. And just because the shows that are remembered are the good ones doesn't mean there wasn't as much crap on TV back then as there currently is. The average viewer has a limited attention span as was already stated, and doesn't necessarily remain a devoted fan of shows that went off the air years ago. It is not uncommon to hear people referring to shows from the mid-90s as "old". Most people don't yearn for years gone by and just move on. IMHO, you can't blame them for that.

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Let's face it, many people treat current tv dvd's as a glorified Tivo. It's just a better way to watch(if you don't mind waiting for the release) a show you like.
I think current always outsells classic tv for a simple reason. Most of the buying crowd wants to sink into a series they have never seen before, or doesn't know how it's going to end up.
I like both, but classic tv dvd's outweigh my collection by a long shot, and I wish there were more of them.

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I don't spit on current TV to defend the classics- I spit on them because just about every one of them are garbage, which I find insulting to my interlligence and moral values. (Hence the reason my TV is not connected to the outside world- i.e. I do not have satelite/cable/antenna).

(Although I have to admit to liking Seinfeld and the pre season-11 Simpsons)

Ya know- I've been watching All In The Family since it's debut in '71 when I was 9 years old- that's 37 years- and I still love the showe and watch it every day...and it still makes me laugh out loud...and I love it more now than ever. Ditto The Odd Couple and The Honeymooners[early 1950's] (even though there are only 39 eps of the original Honeymooners!!)- could you imagine any current show that people will still be avidly watching and buying when these shows are 40-50 years years old?

Some of the classics are timeless. (Some of them were also junk, too!)- the only "modern" shows I can see living on as timeless classics, may be the Simpsons and Seinfeld. Maybe.

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In addition to The Simpsons and Seinfeld, great shows of the past 20 or so years like Twin Peaks, NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Lost and Battlestar Galactica will be the shows that are already or will be regarded as classics in 10 or 20 or 30 years. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that they aren't good.

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I kinda have to agree with you there. Not knocking it if someone else does enjoy current shows but, let's face it, there isn't nearly as much good tv on anymore like there used to be. A lot of people I have had tv conversations with lately don't even know what's on anymore. I've heard current tv described as "trash", "crap", "it's all reality now", "nothing good on anymore"... bare in mind this is just with family and my circle of friends. But, these are also people who don't have nearly as strong a passion for classic tv as I do. With internet and busy lives, tv has become more of a minor activity in most households I would guess.

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Let's not forget Frasier here!
I like both classic and current TV shows but in all honesty I do not find That Girl! or The Odd Couple funny at all, then again give me Mary Tyler Moore show and Bob Newhart and I'll be laughing...
Frasier Cheers Seinfeld - I love but then shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm do nothing for me

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I can think of a dozen shows in the past year that have been good - granted a majority of them are on HBO, Showtime and other cable channels.

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Good point! Frasier is a quality show. I never had the opportunity to really watch it...but from what I've seen of it, I could see myself getting the DVDs! Thanks for reminding me. (Cheers is on my want list too)

To respond to Travis: I could never foresee a show like the Sopranos becoming an enduring classic. I think it's apparent popularity is something that is tied to the present popular culture which values such things as brashness and vulgarity. I would hope that future generations would find such things offensive, just as past generations have.

Our society is in sort of a crisis right now, as our traditional values are being attacked in an assault to try and alter them- but this culture which has been created as a result of that will not endure (and can not endure- it is unsustainable, and contains the conduit for it's own destruction) and will be considered strange, irrelevant and offensive by the future generations who do endure.

Only time will tell who is right. But I don't see the people(nor the culture) who value things like The Sopranos, enduring. (And I'm Italian...)

When you look at the classics that have endured- they are all either shows which transcend popular culture, and which emminate ideas which are universal to people of any time period (i.e. not just based on the narrow trends of the popular culture of their time) and/or shows which portray a time when life was better. I can not iomagine anyone watching the Sopranos 40 years from now, and saying "Wow! Those were the good old days!".

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god Sony sucks. All the stalled shows like The Jeffersons, All In The Family, The Facts Of Life, Maude and so on that are in dire need of another set and they decide to rerelease Seinfeld season 1?

Don't get me wrong, I love Seinfeld, but already have the complete series, there are so many other opportunities in the Sony vault to do the fans right by instead of just putting season 1 of Seinfeld out on its own.

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But see, that's exactly my point. People don't necessarily feel the need to look at the past with fond memories. Most people live with their times and are perfectly fine watching current programming. Sure enough, they're probably not huge TV fans, but I don't see anything wrong with not living by the "everything was better before" motto. There are people out there who don't mind jumping from one show to another and let the past be the past. I can't see anything wrong with that. I say "to each their own". You don't like current TV programming and that's perfectly fine by me, but someone must be liking these shows or they wouldn't stay on the air. Just so we're clear, I'm just stating the obvious here and not trying in any way to diss the classic shows.

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Is anything actually happening between studios? All the hype has seemed to have died down now and the only real stalled series that is being picked up is Adam-12... When can we expect news on anymore??