Just saying "poor sales" does not even scratch the surface of why shows do not sell well. It is simplistic to blame the show itself. How much effort has been put into these shows' releases to begin with? Usually zero. And how much advertising was put into it? Even less. And they are surprised when no one buys a product. How can they when they don't know it exists? And how can they expect to keep making money by cutting every corner possible? They've been penny wise and pound foolish for too long. Fans are catching up to them and refusing to be spoon-fed substandard presentations of their favorite shows.
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I think it's a combination of poor sales and the internal financial workings of the company that's producing the DVDs. It depends on who's in charge of the TV division and what's considered viable. To someone like me, it seems bizarre that only one season of a long-running show like Barney Miller ever was released, but every contemporary one-season wonder like What About Brian? is considered a timeless classic that needs to be preserved for future generations... but the execs in charge have a different perspective, obviously.
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We live in a world where every movie before 1970 and every TV show before 1990 might as well not exist to the people who own them. They only like whatever's current, trendy, and popular and assume everyone else "thinks" like they do.
And it is conceivable that a show could sell well but not well enough. After all, these companies are so obsessed with a 20% profit margin or greater that they would give up a 1%, 5%, 10% or even 19% profit margin. People just parrot "poor sales" without going into any detail of what the studio defines as such.
If beloved and popular shows like Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, etc. can't make it out to completion, then the business model for TV shows on DVD simply NEEDS TO BE CHANGED. Throwing the first seasons of 100 shows to the wall with little regard to presentation or exposure and seeing which ones stick was a bad idea then, and we're paying for it now.
But it's not entirely their fault. Some people say they won't buy a first season of a show until the second season comes out. And if it does come out, sometimes they end up buying it used*or on eBay, which skewers perception of shows' interest because these are not counted towards total sales.
Of course, store space is an issue, as is wholesaler space. There are over 75,000 DVD titles in print today. That still doesn't mean people won't buy it over the internet.
