Why are the DS9 box sets priced so high? (1 Viewer)

Hello everybody,

I am a big Star Trek Deep Space Nine fan. Thought it was the best of the bunch.

I can not get myself to purchase the DVD box sets for the simple reason that they are too expensive for my pocketbook. I understand that the studio has every right to sell it at whatever price they want.

I am wondering a few things. Does anybody know why the price is over a hundred dollars per season? While I assume the studio believes that they will earn more money at the current price point do you think that they actually are? Finally, does anybody know if there is any talk of reducing the price for each season to around $50-60?

Thanks!

Dave Dahl

The ds9 sets are priced fairly i think for the amount of entertainment you get. but if you want to find them for $50 to $60 buy them off ebay you will regularly find them in that price range.

Theyre not as expensive as the X-Files sets which Ive seen as high as $149 at places like Meia Play.

If you have a BJs Warehouse near you,they have them for $79 and even $69 on sale.

$100 is steep.I passed on TNG becuase even in their best seasons,1/2 of the episodes were stinkers.

On the 3rd of every month, my g/f and I buy each other something small.She always gives me a $50 Best Buy gift certificate, which helped me with these sets as only $50 had to come ot of my pocket to get them.

As said above, Ive seen them on ebay for less.

Dave,
They can be found for less than $100 online, depending on when you buy them. If you buy them as a preorder from places like Overstock.com Deep Discount DVD, etc, you can get them for $80-$90. As someone else said, BJ's Warehouse has them for about $85 or less. Costco might have them for the same price but I'm not a member so I don't know for certain. B&M stores like Best Buy will sometimes have them on sale for less than $100. Even after the boxes have been released for sale, you might be able to find a good deal for under $100 if you keep looking. You can get Season 5 right now at Overstock.com for about $84 w/shipping. And as others have said, Ebay is an option

Dana

They are simply milking the fans of the show (or the licensing/residual fees in the contracts of the principal actors makes the boxsets priced at the current levels). I think it's probably a little of both.

I read once thats why X-Files sets were so high - C Carter,G Anderson and D Duchovnys royalties.

I have all seven sets and have paid less than $100 for each season. Try some comparison shopping.

M.

Yeah, you really need to go online to find a good price for any of the star trek sets, as well as the afore-mentioned X-Files. Star Trek does have about four more episodes per set than other series like Buffy/Angel, but I don't think that justifies charging twice as much. Especially when they don't have the same music clearance problems as many shows. I think your best bet is ebay, where you can get a good price on most tv sets.

At list price of about $140, it works out to about $5.00 per episode in a 26-episode season. At the more common price of $100 per season, an episode costs $3.84.

Are you saying that one of the greatest Star Trek series isn't worth $5.00 or less per episode?

Consider those poor folks who bought the whole thing at closer to $15 -$20 an episode on VHS. To me, the DVDs seem quite a bargain.

As suggested above, it's possible to get them for even less with some online comparison shopping. If you can get a set down to $60, you're looking at $2.30 per episode.

And these prices per episodes I've quoted don't even begin to address the bonus material which is certainly worth something.

If other series are priced less, then maybe they are just great bargains - or perhaps they're just not worth all that much after all. Just my humble opinion - I'm happy to have all seven seasons of both DS9 and TNG.

Harry

I buy all my DS9 sets off of Ebay. I have never had a problem with them, they work fine. I only have the first 4 seasons but I have paid less then $70 for each from ebay. Best deal on the planet other then stealing them.

Babylon 5 sets SRP at $100. For 22 epsiodes, that's $4.54/episode. At the more common price of $65-80 per season, an epsiode costs $2.95-$3.63.

26 epsiodes at those price points would be a more reasonable $118 SRP and $77-95 as a common price (and common prices are easy to find if you do the research. Or you can wait a couple years and it'll drop even more when the sets don't move so well.

Star Trek's per-episode prices are a bit steep when compared to most 1-hour/ep season sets, X-Files exluded.

Patric Sun wrote:

I don't know about that. Historically, I think the Trek actors have had pretty lousy deals, and I don't see them getting any higher residuals than the casts of shows like Buffy, 24, Alias, Dawson's Creek, or any of the series with season sets priced considerably lower.

It's a false comparison, though, because they are different things. The question becomes, is the per-episode price Paramount charges worth paying for DS9? How much Buffy costs is irrelevent, because you (probably) don't go to the store looking to buy an "hourlong drama season set", but a specific program. Whether or not $4/hour is a good price for that specific content is the only issue worth considering.

I have heard before that the TNG sets were priced high because of residual deals -- who knows if that's true -- but it's not like Paramount's not going to charge more for Star Trek than any other sets out there. They know people will pay.

And even if the DS9 actors didn't have the same deals (as maybe Stewart, Frakes, and Spiner), it's not like Paramount is going to lower the price.

I just wonder how well Voyager will sell at those prices...?

All in all, however, I'm pleased w/the TNG and DS9 sets. They are pricey, but they look good and sound good -- and now I don't have to watch Spike. Also, given DS9's story arcs, the best way to watch these is on DVD (IMO).

There are a number of reasons for the pricing.

1. The production budget for all of the Star Trek series since TNG have been many times that of Buffy (or even Babylon 5), so there is more perceived value to the show.

2. Royalties. Trek casts get a bigger piece of the pie than the casts of Buffy and Angel.

3. More episodes per season.

4. Franchise loyalty. Paramount knows there are people who will shell out for the Trek franchise. There is a lot of market research that goes into setting prices for these things. Paramount charges the price which provides the biggest profit margin. Business is business.

As others have mentioned, if you shop around you'll find them for under $100. I've seen the DS9 sets in stores (not online) for $84.99.

-Scott

It won't, at least not to me. I'd consider it at a lower retail, but not at the TNG, DS9 price I paid. Maybe if I find them used for around $50 a season, maybe. That said I'm sure many will buy it.

I'm very happy to have TNG & DS9 on my shelf. At $100 a season it was a lot of money, but it is the cheapest Trek has ever been in a home video format.

To get the Trek boxes cheap on eBay typically requires waiting a little while. I wasn't willing to do that with DS9, so I got them at BB for $99 for the most part. I did save some on at least two of them by using gift cards, plus I'll have the $20 rebate coming in. I don't feel so bad about the expense, since I was able to get six of the TNG boxes for a total of about $170. That was because I got four of them as gifts from several people over a couple of Christmases.

With Voyager, I'll probably just wait as long as it takes to get them cheap on eBay. I've seen all the episodes, so I am not in any particular rush.

Probably not much--relatively. The top-selling Star Trek TV series DVD of 2003 was the seventh season of ST:TNG--and it sold only 82,000 copies ($8.3 million in revenue), according to Video Business. No other Trek series DVD was in the top 50 sellers for TV DVDs in 2003 (nor were any X-Files).

As a comparison, since it comes up all the time when pricing of the Trek DVDs comes up, the third season of Buffy sold 398,000 copies ($18.6 million) in 2003. Buffy S4 sold 339,000 copies ($15.9 million). Buffy S5 sold 172,000 copies ($8 million). Buffy S2 sold 131,000 copies ($6.2 million).

Paramount seems to like pricing their Trek seasons at a premium price. They have gotten better, but they still are a bit steep. I know I would be interested in buying some trek if they were cheaper. I have just been too lazy to try and find used sets online.