Comparing Now to TV-DVD's Heyday?

I think the releases have dropped off. Just look at the aisle in best buy, future shop, walmart, etc. My guesses is releases are down by 40-50%. I also don't buy many dvds from the retailers and prefer to use amazon.

I don't have any #'s but I'd guess that it's around a 60-70% decline from a few years ago.  I don't buy DVD's at local stores - online only, but the last time I was in Best Buy, the shelve space seemed to have declined from a couple years ago.  Still, I was surprised at how many TV/DVD's that were still on display.  I didn't look closely enough to compare decades in release....how many were series' from 2000 to present and how many were pre-90's sets.

My local Walmart TV/DVD shelf space was a lot smaller than the same time last year.

As far as a % of total release decline, it depends on what someone considers what the decade[s] are as being classic TV/DVD.  If we're talking what I consider classic (50's-80's), then it's been a big decline, imo.

Of course new classic releases have dropped off, but the biggest problem is the fact that the big box stores have almost quit carrying new classic TV releases.

Couldn't find a single copy of Barnaby Jones or Small Wonder this past week. I'm not hopeful in finding Night Court or My Three Sons tomorrow. The only reason I know Adam 12 S4 is going to be at my local Movie Stop is because I went in, saw two copies on the rack full of upcoming releases, and reserved one (cheaper than Amazon prices, no less).

I wonder,  Did stores stop carrying classic releases, which caused a slowdown, or did sales just suck, which caused the slowdown and stores to stop carrying them?

Did you check Wal-Mart for Barnaby Jones? They seem good at carrying classic television releases from CBS. They're always stocked in this area.

I never can find Shout releases at major retailers and I rarely see Universal releases like Emergency! in stores like Wal-Mart's, but I've never had troubles locating CBS releases like Petticoat Junction and the butchered season 1 releases of My Three Sons.

I'm pretty certain I could walk into my local rural Wal-Mart tomorrow and get season 2 volume 1 of My Three Sons pretty easily. Of course, I won't even be trying since it's just going to be more of the same butchering season 1 sufferred from.

Yeah, Wal-Mart was my last stop, and no Barnaby Jones. I was surprised. Usually, S1 boxes get ordered.

I did see My Three Sons and Night Court on a sign in Target, so those may be findable tomorrow.

On the other hand, my local Best Buy has plenty of Shout DVDs... Mr. Ed, Patty Duke, Adam 12, Mr. Belvedere...

I'm in too rural of an area for Best Buy. The closest one is over an hour away. Same with Target. I've never even been in either chain, always have other things on my itinerary that are more important when I've driven by one.

I pretty much rely on Wal-Mart and FYE, which means I usually just pick the easy route and order online.

Wish I had some of these other chains within a reasonable distance. There's something nice about being able to walk into a brick and mortar store and purchase something you want rather rather than purchasing it online and having to wait for it to ship.
Edited by LeoAmes - 2/22/10 at 10:38pm

I think it's just slightly less nowdays.  There are many, many 'new' shows that get dvd releases so I think that is better than a few years ago.  As always classic tv on dvd is a chaotic mess.
not only are we getting less, studios are constantly title jumping(trying a release of one title in their library, and on to another) looking for a good seller.

     Quote:

James, as Jeff said up above in this thread, a lot of what you are asking for depends on which decades we are talking about.  For instance, I see almost no slowdown with current show releases.  On the other hand, if we are talking about Vintage material that originally aired in the 50's and 60's, then I can state beyond a doubt we've seen a major slowdown over the last couple of years.  Personally I wouldn't take the "Heyday" back quite as far as you did.  I remember 2008 being a very solid year for vintage releases.  The last quarter alone of that year saw me purchase almost 50 Vintage titles!!  I still look back to that time frame as the top of the hill, so to speak.

As for now, compared to the Heyday of Vintage releases, I'd say we are at about 1/4 of where we were just a couple of years ago.  If you expand the release decade to include shows from the 70's and 80's I'd say we are at about 1/2 of what we were getting several years ago.  In other words, the newer material isn't suffering from a lack of releases nearly as much as older material is.  There's been a marked decrease, when compared to previous years, of vintage material being released on a regular basis in 2010. 

I'm quite confident we have already seen the heyday.  We are still getting some great stuff that I'm very thankful for, but I'd be lying if I said I thought the output was the same now as it was two or three years ago when it comes to vintage material.

Gary "I say get it while the gettin' is good - and thank God for Shout! Factory" O.

Though I think it should be said that after a number of years we have benefited from seeing a large number of key titles from the 60s get out and be carried through to completion.     While we all have our share of 60s titles that are unreleased or incomplete I think if we made a full list of all 60s shows that are out in full, we'd come away impressed.      More so than the 1970s where I think amazingly there is a *smaller* number of completed shows from the 70s on DVD than 60s.

    Quote:

That could very well be true, Jack.  Since I'm not nearly the fan of 70's TV that I am of 60's TV, I've never paid a lot of attention to the ratios.  But assuming your hypothesis is true (and I think it probably is) I'd say a part of the reason is simply that the 60's had more iconic shows than the 70's overall.  There was just a wealth of fantastic series that the 60's produced.  It's not that the 70's were horrible in this respect.  They had their fair share of iconic shows.  But I honestly don't think it can compare to the 1960's in terms of volume.  I have to believe that's a big reason for what you are talking about.

Gary "it's not that I didn't like any shows in the 70's - I did and I have several in my collection - it's just that I don't think that decade put out as many iconic shows as the previous one" O.

I wonder when the effect of the Blue Ray market is going to kill standard DVD.
At some point soon, the retailers are going to have to make the call to quit stocking
standard DVD titles when B-R gets takes over the space.   Inventory is the issue,
they're not going to stock both versions of titles that don't sell in quantity.

Two of the biggest reasons that have slowed my buying DVD are :
the incomplete sets... now i'm waiting to see how far a show gets in the run.
(Come on more Love Boat already!!!!)   And the other is that i've got sets like
Magnum PI and Rockford Files that I haven't watched yet.

Sometimes I like to watch 2 or more series together, like how the shows aired.
I'll watch Magnum when I have Simon & Simon to watch with it, and i'd really
like to have Fantasy Island to watch along side Love Boat, but both those shows
look like they're stalled.

Given the rapid decline in the economy starting in '07, it's no surprise that the demand isn't there like before - at least for studios to try a catalog title.

The economy in the USA contracted about 2%.... the market for DVD's in shrinking fast because of other reasons.
Like the music business, the market is changing, and people are getting their media in a different way now.
Movies and TV shows have had a good run on DVD, but it looks like that is changing.  Will it be "on demand" viewing,
or downloading, or some other format that replaces DVD?   Or some combination of all of it?    Hulu has a bunch of
classic seasons you can stream on-line (at least if you live in the usa)  

The problem is uncertainty.  Itunes worked for music because it became the obvious better choice than buying a physical CD.
(for many people)  TV especially needs to quickly get something planned.   Personally, I love the idea of DVD, which is that I can
watch what I want, whenever I want.  But now i've got an IPhone, and would like to watch shows on that device too. 

Maybe some form of "digital copy" is going to be the way to go, so that when you buy a show, you can watch it however you want.

 

Well, just to advance this point further, this is a list of all *completed* shows that I classify as 60s shows.

The Twilight Zone (59-64)

Barbara Stanwyck Show (60-61) (All extant programs)

Checkmate (60-62)
Andy Griffith Show (60-68)

Frontier Circus (61-62)
Dick Van Dyke Show (61-66)
McHale's Navy (62-66)
New Loretta Young Show (62-63)
Combat! (62-67)
Outer Limits (63-65)
My Favorite Martian (63-66)
Addams Family (64-66)
Munsters (64-66)
Gilligan's Island (64-67)
Gomer Pyle USMC (64-69)
Bewitched (64-72)
Daniel Boone (64-70)
Man From UNCLE (64-68)
Gidget (65-66)
I Dream Of Jeannie (65-70)
F Troop! (65-67)
Get Smart! (65-70)
Hogan's Heroes (65-71)
Lost In Space (65-68)
Honey West (65-66)
I Spy (65-68)
Wild Wild West (65-69)
Laredo (65-67)
Time Tunnel (66-67)
Rat Patrol (66-68)
Star Trek (66-69)
Mission: Impossible (66-73)
That Girl (66-71)
Family Affair (66-71)
Good Morning World (67-68)
The Invaders (67-68)

The Mothers-In-Law (67-69)
Land Of The Giants (68-70)
Doris Day Show (68-73) (can perhaps be called both decades)

Bill Cosby Show (69-71) (ditto, but has more of a late 60s feel to me)

Now compare that to shows we can classify as 70s shows with all their run out:

Brady Bunch (69-74)
Partridge Family (70-74)
Odd Couple (70-75)
Columbo (71-78)
Emergency! (72-77) (the final TV movies I consider separate)
MASH (72-83)
Sanford And Son (72-77)
The Waltons (72-81)
Good Times (73-79)
Lotsa Luck (73-74)
Little House On The Prairie (74-83)
Rockford Files (74-80)
Planet Of The Apes (74)
That's My Mama! (74-75)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker (74-75)
Starsky And Hutch (75-79)
Wonder Woman (76-79)
What's Happening (76-79)
Tabitha (77-78)
Soap! (77-81)
Quark (78)
Incredible Hulk (78-82)
Battlestar Galactica (78-79)

Paper Chase (78-79) (I think of the CBS shows and the Showtime shows as different entities entirely)
Taxi (78-83)

And the 70s count is really inflated a bit by a large number of titles that were one-season shows only compared to a smaller amount of one season shows only from the 60s list while many of the 70s shows that we consider the "iconic" ones for that decade are stalled out for all intents and purposes (All In The Family; Bob Newhart Show; Jeffersons; one more year for both Charlie's Angels and MTM Show that we can't take for granted) with only one currently in progress that I can be assured of seeing to completion (Hawaii Five-O).

But taking all of that into account what this really shows IMO is that yes, the economic slowdown and the changing market is causing a slow-down in vintage TV releases, but truthfully when it comes to the 60s at least we are running out of iconic titles that haven't been released or been stalled.   "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" for all the frustration we have over that last set is still 88% out.     As far as long running series we associate with that decade only "The FBI" (9 seasons) has no DVD release of any kind and of other iconic shows of that decade, only "Bonanza" is in an early phase of not much out (you could also I suppose include "Gunsmoke" in that category).    Just about anything else we pine for that in that era it has to be said falls more into the niche category whereas with the 70s, many of the icons still await completion.
 

Edited by Jack P - 5/21/10 at 2:04pm

Little House on the Prairie is completed (Barring one holiday highlights retrospective that wasn't on the season releases). It was a 70's show just like M*A*S*H that lasted into the early 80s. Same with The Waltons.

Made the adjustments.    Even with those two, it's still a big imbalance in favor of the 60s.

I like that Christmas retrospective.

I also liked The Little House Years (Which was actually a Thanksgiving retrospective). It's too bad in wasn't included with the season 6 release like it should've been.

I'd also consider My Three Sons to be in the same category as Bonanza and Gunsmoke. While it hasn't been as heavily syndicated in recent decades, it was quite popular at the time and is fondly remembered by many with just a fraction of it having been released (In heavily altered condition).

Oh.  I'm thinking of the one where Caroline recalled a Christmas from her youth, as did Hester-Sue.  I guess that's in the sets?

Jack,

Thanks for compiling the list!  Interesting #'s.  I still vote with Gary and say that overall, what most here define as "Classic" TV/DVD has peaked but it's still an impressive 60's list.  Fortunately, for me, I have a lot of the complete sets in your 60's list and if I had to pick my favorite TV/DVD decade, it would be the 60's.  There are major holy grail's from that decade for me....Combat!, Time Tunnel, Wild Wild West, Dick Van Dyke, Twilight Zone, Bewitched, Jeannie, etc, all completed releases!

But we can't ignore some major misses in there, Batman, Green Hornet, Dennis the Menace, etc.  C'mon, Shout! :)

"Batman" is indeed perhaps the most significant 60s "icon" show not out in any kind of official DVD release (though thankfully "unofficial" versions are very good!), but truthfully the minefield that's prevented a release there would have existed even without the economic problems that account for TV on DVD slowdown elsewhere.

Of current "in-progress" 60s shows we can likely expect "Fugitive" (warts and all) to be completed and that last smidgen of "Voyage" can't stay hidden forever I think.    The remaining episodes (some apparently may be lost) of the one season "Barbara Stanwyck Show" are headed soon, and Shout! still pledges to come through with that final season of "Bill Cosby Show" (I think of that as more 60s than 70s even though it's 69-71).      It's also not beyond probability to expect "Patty Duke Show" and "Route 66" (just one more season to go for both) to make it, and with "Mister. Ed" up to Season 3 already, that seems to be on-track for getting to completion.     All of which would certainly swell the 60s list to even more impressive heights even in the face of a seemingly broader slow-down for the market.

The 50s are admittedly a worse decade.    "Perry Mason" which straddles the two decades might get to completion but at the split season rate, that's still a long ways off at this point.   "Have Gun Will Travel" which also falls into that category might make it if the S4 sales are okay because if that show gets to S5 at least, then I think S6 would then follow.   

In the meantime, this is the state of 50s complete that I know of (help me if there are others!)

Adventures of Superman
I Love Lucy
Abbott And Costello
Honeymooners (classic 39)
M Squad
Man With A Camera
Steve Canyon (final episodes soon)

The contrasts are amazing for the three decades that we describe as "classic TV" and it's clear that the 50s will sadly forever rank as the true "lost" decade of TV on DVD overall.

I think you are seeing a large drop off in classic releases. I collect the 60's and 70's and for quite a while now the releases have been scant. Now one obvious reason is that many have already been released.

We have been told by knowledgeable people on the inside that sales have decreased. That becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. You don't release much, then you don't sell much. If selling classic dvd's was so profitable, we would have seen series being completed already and everything else that was not tied up in legal red tape, would have come out already.

I've seen the list, there are still a lot of fan favorites not released or finished. I will hope and pray along with you all.

I'm just waiting for the rest of The Lone Ranger.  I was pretty impressed with the first two season set.

Here are a few more 50's for you:

"Zorro" (57-59)
"The Adventures of Robin Hood" (55-59)
"Dangerous Assignment" (52)
"The Buccaneers" (56-57)
"The Invisible Man" (58-59)
"Leave it to Beaver" - (57-63) Complete series recently announced!
"The Abbott and Costello Show" (51-53) - (complete series just announced for 3/30/10)

And a few for the 60's list:

"The Prisoner" (67-68)
"Secret Agent" (60-66)
"The Monkees" (66-67)
"The Flintstones" (60-66)
"The Jetsons" (63) - (No, I do not consider the 1984-87 eps. to truly be part of this show.)
"Jonny Quest" (64-65)

And one for the 70's list:

"Tabitha" (77-78)

If you want to include British only programs that later jumped the pond we could add a dozen or so more to the lists.

Yeah, the Christmas retrospective where they get snowed in and everyone is looking back to their Christmas memories of youth is on the DVD releases (Such as using the actor that became Albert to portray Charles as a child, or going back to the pilot episode when Mr. Edwards shows up during a storm to deliver presents to the girls)

Bumping this thread to note some updates to my earlier post comparing the level of completed 60s shows on DVD to 70s shows and how this can be some food for thought before we get too disconcerted over the "slowdown" ratio for classic TV on DVD, which I don't deny exists, but which in the light of having 40 completed series from the decade I don't think should make us constantly bemoan too much what isn't out when there is a lot of great stuff that has made it, and yet by contrast we're still seeing so much from the 70s that we consider "iconic" that remains incomplete.