All of my favorites are tanking.... (1 Viewer)

[Sean Laughter]

I know many of you don't consider these "niche" shows, but quite frankly, in todays market they can be considered "niche" pretty much relative to the revenue they need to generate to be worthwhile. Part of this is rights and royalties and the other is just plain materials cost.

I think alot of these older shows that may not be able to withstand DVD release will get a better chance if/when there is a legitimate download service for video, where budgets and payouts to the various entities involved in the show can be based on observed downloads. Who knows, maybe the ability to put one season on one HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc will make it easier on the manufacturing side, though I doubt that's the majority of the cost.

 

[peggy]

To answer the question, I have been waiting the longest for the second season of SWAT but I seriously doubt it will ever come out. However since the Mary Tyler Moore thing actually did finally happen I just have a small glimmer of hope.

 

[Jay_B!]

actually, you'd be surprised at the cult following Facts Of Life has, there's a good chance it'll sell well enough to see a season 3 within 8 months. It's not an obscure 80's show, it's fans are actually rather geeky and fanatical about it (in a good way), so we should be getting more Facts after seasons 1/2 come out.

 

[Jay_B!]

they could do a SWAT II and time the DVD with that, it was probably Colin Farrell's most successful movie in the US where he was the star in, so just maybe.

 

[Doug^Ch]

I would much rather have one season of some of these shows than none at all, which I think some of you are advocating. Almost all of the shows mentioned in this thread have no continuity. You can watch one from whatever season, and with the exception of characters looking a little older, you can follow the show without having to ever have seen another.

The shows which are abandoned after one season that bother me the most are the shows with strong story arcs such as Everwood. These types of shows bring you in and you really can't wait to find out what happens next. Watch a few episodes of say Dragnet, which by the way I like as much as the next guy, and it doesn't really matter a hell of a lot what happens in the subsequent seasons. I know it is the completist collector that is in most of the people who post here that is most offended, but try to fight the impulse, and be happy with your one or two seasons.

 

[Ethan Riley]

I'd say any show before about 1996 is now considered a "classic" show. The big studios simply do not know how to market their own classic tv show catalogs. These older shows MUST be farmed out to boutique distributors who know how to market and handle this material. Believe me, Sony would never have been able to put out 10 seasons of Little House on the Prairie. Fox would never have known how to sell 6 or 8 seasons of 3's Company. True, Paramount managed to get out all 5 seasons of the Brady Bunch, but hey--it's the Brady Bunch, one of the most successful 70s shows of all--very easy to sell. However, Paramount did a half-assed job of it--they gave us four seasons with ZERO extras.

In the future, these titles MUST be sent out to those who can handle them. Other than that, the big studios may consider creating sub-companies within themselves to oversee the production of classic tv sales...just a niche group within the main group that knows how to market this stuff. I always say that good marketing = good sales. Trite, but true. The fact that a popular show like Happy Days didn't sell isn't because the show sucks; it's because Paramount didn't know what to do with it.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Me too! but I haven't lost hope yet. I'm starting to be concerned about the release of Season 2 of Rat Patrol and Season 2 and 3 of Seaquest as well.

 

[Bob Hug]

Doug, I have to reluctantly agree with you on this. For example, as much as I enjoy the show "Kojak" and would truly want to have the entire series in my collection, it won't be the end of the world if season 1 is the only season released. One only has to glance at the data base at TVShowsonDVD.com to know that a huge number of television shows have been released on DVD in a comparatively short period of time. I wonder if the market is simply saturated with too many TV-on-DVD releases.

 

[Brian Himes]

I understand that older Tv shows can be considered a 'niche' market, but sometimes I am baffled by what the studios choose to market and what they don't. For example, Univeral releases Kolchak: The Night Stalker and that show only lasted one season. Sony did the samething with Tabitha. While I'm glad that I have these two shows, I would have much rather had subsequent seasons of shows that I had already begun. Like Kojak or Baretta.

Don't get me wrong, I love it when a short lived shows is released on DVD, but if I were in charge of these shows, I'd be more willing to release a show that had two or more seasons. To me, any show that lasted two or more seasons must have had some kind of following and therefore should translate into decent DVD sales.

The problem with Sony and Universal that I see is that they just have too many irons in the fire and not sales. They start these series, release one or two seasons, then six months later, they start 3 to 5 new series instead of finishing off what they've begun. I'm sorry, but I think the other studios need to take a look at how Paramount does things. It took them only a year to release the Brady Bunch on DVD. While I was disappointed in the lack of extras on the sets, I think that the fact that they took the time to release complete uncut episodes well out weighed the lack of extras. And, look at how they released all of their entire Star Trek TV library. One year to collect all seven seasons of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I think Paramount has the right idea. I'm sorry but there really is no excuse why Fox has taken 6 years to release all eleven seasons of MASH or that Sony still hasn't released all of All In The Family.

The whole thing just boggles my mind. Lesser know shows are released copmplete, while more well known classic shows just trickle out or stop all together.

 

[michael_ks]

What benefits many of the classic tv fans is the fact that more often than not, the first season or two of a multi-season series is often the best. Even if "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." does not see a release beyond the first 2 seasons, I will consider myself fortunate to have the classic B&W episodes and the best full season color segments--same holds for "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea".

There are many series I'm losing hope for ("Sea Hunt", "Route 66", "The Invaders") in light of recent commentary regarding a potential peaking of TV-on-DVD sales so at this point I'd be grateful to be able to purchase even the initial season for these (and other) pre-1968 series. At least when "The Fugitive" is released (and I feel very confident that it will eventually) almost certainly all four seasons will come out. By the way, this week Liberation Entertainment is marketing "Daniel Boone" at a trade exposition, so there is hope for that series coming out in the near future.

 

[michael_ks]

Quite often, the shows that live in the memories of fans the most are the very ones with the fewest episodes. I have no facts to substantiate this, but I'd be willing to bet that the fan base for "The Green Hornet" "Jonny Quest", "The Prisoner" and perhaps even "T.H.E. Cat" is greater than that for "Baretta".

 

[Doug^Ch]

Bob, I'm glad that you see my point. TV on DVD is a passion with me - much to my wife's dismay. I almost never buy movies; I love the ability to watch hours of uninterrupted story with strong characters that feel like friends from the hours spent with them. I have such wide ranging tastes in TV on DVD that it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with all the releases. So when approximately eighty percent of my collection goes unwatched, it does not upset me too much when a particular series stops after one or two seasons.

Sometimes I feel that well done samplers of a series may be the best way to go. For example, I grew up watching Gunsmoke, and it was always one of my favorite shows, but I can hardly conceive of wanting to watch, or store for that matter, over 600 episodes of it. I think that the recently released compilations for that show were very well done, and I enjoyed them immensely. In that same vein, I can say the same thing for "You Bet Your Life".

I don't however discount the fact that for every TV show ever made, no matter how inane, there seems to be someone somewhere who thinks that it was his or her magnum opus. For those people, I am truly disappointed that they may not get every uncut episode with commentary and historical background on each show.

 

[RickER]

I guess i am happy to own even 1 season of a show. I remember a time when i was VERY young, thinking how cool would it be to own a 16mm copy of an episode of Star Trek, yeah, on film. Now i own 60 of the 79 episodes on DVD in better quality than any 16mm film would have been. I would be happy to own the 1st season of The Six Million Dollar Man instead of nothing. Life sucks when your favorite show wont finish up on DVD...sucks almost as much as when your favorite show gets canceled (Farscape). Life is hard isn't it?

 

[Jason Seaver]

Must have had some kind of following. Being popular 30 years ago is no guarantee of popularity now. Give time, the shows that are unique and unusual (and as such maybe only lasted a short while; the public has always been fickle) may be more likely to endure. Kojak and Baretta may have lasted a while, but one crime show blends into another, and decades later, they aren't so remarkable. After all, there's still cop shows, and the old model seldom looks as good as what Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer are cranking out.

And in thirty years, Law & Order and CSI may fizzle in the marketplace while Arrested Development and Firefly are popular when they're released on whatever medium we're using then.

 

[Jon_Gu]

I see part of the problem with sales being the Brick & Mortar stores not keeping up with their stocking. I can't tell you how many times I've been the first one through the door on Tuesday morning looking for a couple of new releases, only to find out the shelves haven't been stocked. I had gotten away from buying DVD's for a couple of months :frowning: and realized I'd missed Emergency! S2, I went looking for it. Couldn't find it on the shelf anywhere. A box for S1 was available here and there so I don't think it was stale sales. They were just lazy and not putting it out.

That hurts sales when the product isn't on the shelf and when the product is finally put on the shelf a couple of weeks late the studios have already started crunching numbers and not necessarily paying attention to the 'late buyers'.

I also have to agree that the market is saturated. There is just too much coming out to keep up with it all at the current price points. It's hard to spend $100 each Tuesday to pick up 3 sets and decide which 2 or 3 to leave behind.

I just picked up A-Team S4, Magnum PI S-4, and KR S4 yesterday...even saving $5 on each episode with the coupon included with the S3 sets...that was $90.

Full House S3 was also released yesterday, I'd like to have it, but I stopped buying FH after S1 there's just too much hitting the shelves at one time to be able to afford everything I want! The Brady Bunch fell victim to this same problem after S2.

There are weeks that little or nothing comes out I'm interested in so I'll drop back and pick something up that I missed earlier, but I wonder if the studios even notice that since it may be a couple of months past the original release date when it comes home with me. Is that a bad thing? To me it just means the studios/stores are still getting my money and should take that into account when deciding if a set was profitable based on the first month of release.

 

[Tory]

Tabitha got a release riding the coattails of its mother series Bewitched and the recent film. Kolchak has always had a strong cult following, is X-Files associated and was released at about the time of a new series. Even though that new series is dead, putting a DVD out now while it is fresh in the fans minds and probably already prepped is another way to make more money now rather than less later.

 

[michael_ks]

Younger collectors who clamor for DVDs for shows that are currently being broadcast(!) have no idea what it's like to wait decades for something like this to become reality. I recall my amazement when single episodes of Star Trek and later, The Outer Limits came out on VHS in the 80s. At that time, I could only afford a handful of my favorite episodes of each series.

 

[Brian Himes]

Or that once one of their favorite shows ends its run on TVland or Nick @ Night, that that will probably be the last time that they'll ever see that show. Look at Phyliss, Rhoda, The Rookies, and Room 222. None of these shows are in syndication at the moment and will probably never be again. Unless some local stations pick them up, I've come to the conclusion that TVland and Nick @ Night are TV show graveyards. The end of the line for these shows unless they are released on DVD.

I hope in my lifetime, that TV on demand becomes a reality so if I'm in the mood to see Room 222 or something else, I can just punch in a code and five minutes later the show comes on.

 

[MatthewA]

I like that idea. Sony could start something called "Screen Gems Home Entertainment" or something like that devoted exclusively to the back catalog of TV shows.

 

[Dan*T]

Ethan, I couldn't agree with you more!!