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It's hard to say if there's a "magic number" for sales of season sets because each one has it's own specific costs and fees. Some shows will cost more to put out because of music licensing rights, fees for special features, etc. On the flipside, some shows cost very little to put out if none of those fees are incurred. You also have to take into consideration the packaging design and remastering fees.
If you look at Fox's release of M*A*S*H, you'll see that it's a basic low-cost barebones season set release. There isn't any music to clear (that I know of), the packaging is as simple as it gets and there likely wasn't much remastering done, if at all. The reason for this is because Fox expected low sales and to make the releases profitable, they had to keep their production costs as low as possible.
However, if you look at their release of the Buffy or Angel sets, you'll see that they have sprung for better packaging, better audio/video, better special features, etc. This is because there's a certain level of sales those sets will generate that will cover the extra costs involved in producing the sets.
So, essentially, the "magic number" is different for each release because it depends on how much they spent to make the set. Unfortunately, Mary Tyler Moore didn't hit that magic number and that's why there haven't been any future releases. Even if the later seasons are "better", trends indicate that the first seasons will always sell the most and while sales are fairly consistent with later seasons, it does trail off a little bit. Sets that aren't the first season, rarely, if ever sell better. And while companies do know their product, it's hard to determine exactly how much sales will be generated on any given title that is new to the marketplace. They certainly have statistice and whatnot to base their decisions on, but it's not an exact science.
All that being said, I think a decent "magic number" to look to is 100,000 copies as far as season sets are concerned. I remember reading an article a while back that stated the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 1 set had sold 50,000 copies in it's first few weeks or so. Given that it was released prior to Christmas (Nov 18th), I figured that it would probably sell another 50,000 or so through the holiday and on into the new year giving it a total of somewhere around 100,000. That seems to have been good for Warner because they're planning another release this June. The set was pretty "standard" in it's special features... a few deleted scenes and commentary tracks ...and the packaging was nice, but not elaborate. All around, it was a fairly middle-of-the-road release so it's a good template of sorts.
Of course, the above magic number will only work if you can find out how many copies a season set actually sold... those stats aren't readily available.
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