An open letter to Sony (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Nothing more than a guess but maybe Paramount is happy with 'less' profit than Sony or Warners. In other words, maybe Sony or Warners consider making $100 (not a real number) not worth the time and effort of their company but Paramount would consider that $100 worth the effort.

Or maybe each company has different costs associated with their DVD production so the amount they want to make is different for each company.

 

[Jeff*H]

I think any official confirmation will be hard to come by, but it's fair to say if they have relatively lower upfront costs (transfers, dvd production, packaging) and fewer opportunity costs then their sales projection models will yield a healthy profit margin with fewer sales than many of the other companies would ever accept. A number of the Paramount shows such as Hawaii Five-0 were already digitally remastered for syndication prior to their DVD release.

Plus, I believe someone pointed out in an earlier post that CBS DVD incurs lower transfer costs and also specializes in TV-DVD output (allowing for more frequent releases since it's the only thing they put out), it's their sole area of focus, with Paramount handling distribution. I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed or just speculation.

 

[Jay_B!]

yea, I know about Paramount cheapening out with packaging and disc artwork, but to be honest... if that is the only way to get future sets of old Warner, Fox and Sony classics, I'll be just fine with it. As long as the packaging isn't a total eyesore, it wouldn't bother me if the rest of Maude or One Day At A Time or whatever were released with typical amaray DVD trays with silver artwork, I'd be happy to have it

 

[Chip_HT]

Star Trek?

 

[Jay_B!]

waaaaaaaaaay too expensive, or at least when it started out. Shows like Seinfeld and Friends could be had for under $30 on sales when they came out, Trek was always over $100 and prices didn't start coming down until a few years later, so I highly doubt that a $110 season of Star Trek TNG caused as much impulse purchases as a season of Friends or Seinfeld marked on sale

 

[David Levine]

Star Trek has sold very well, but nowhere near shows like Friends and Seinfeld.

The highest Vidoscanning Star Trek Season is S1 of the original series, and that's done about 10% of what the first seasons of Friends and Seinfeld did.

Trek is nowhere near 24, The Shield, The Sopranos, etc. It's a louder fanbase, but a smaller one.

 

[MatthewA]

Maybe if they had charged a reasonable price it would have sold better. I would have bought it for my Mom if it were.

 

[Jay_B!]

right. I know there was this "Star Trek fanatics will pay $300" mentallity, but what about everyone else? What made shows like The Simpsons, Friends, Seinfeld and the sort such phenomenons on DVD was the fact that not only did they sell to the loyal fans of each, but also sold to impulse buyers seeing the seasons on sale who normally wouldn't buy a TV-DVD. Convincing someone that getting a season of those aforementioned shows for $30 (and nowadays you can find Friends and Seinfeld sets on sale for under $20 on a semi-weekly basis) would be worth the investment is much easier that someone who is on the fence about Trek and deciding that one season of a Trek show is worth $100 or so. Granted, the most devout Trekkies would sacrifice their firstborn for a complete series set of TNG on BluRay, but the average joe wouldn't.

 

[TravisR]

The hardcore fans who will pay anything probably make up for alot of the casual fans who would buy it at $40. If Paramount knows anything, it's how to make money off of Star Trek.

 

[David Levine]

It does - more-so in total revenue than in units sold. Although, they'd make more money in the long run with a lower MSRP.

Hardcore fans are never enough to make something a huge hit. They're your "money in the bank" because you know they'll buy whatever you put out. What makes things a hit is when you get the casual fan/curious consumer to buy your product.

 

[MatthewA]

That's the problem. They're sacrificing the long term company health for a quick fix.

 

[Jay_B!]

well that's true, but I think at the same time, it could gain a substantial audience via DVD who were waiting for something like this to get into it. Case in point, Buffy. It was already a major cult series and those of us who were big fans all bought the DVD's the day they came out, but.... as has been noticed many times on this forum alone, the fact that Buffy didn't cost an arm and a leg (granted, $40-50 isn't cheap when you're on a budget but it's not $100+) was enough to entice a lot of people who had heard good things about the show to give it a shot themselves. I remember the overwhelming majority of people here were mad that a snapshot of the final cast shot from the series finale which contains a bit of a spoiler with what happens to one character was on a panel in the season 7 set, that people were mad. Why? Because while Buffy's TV audience was massive and loyal, even more people were coming into these sets blindly without hindsight of what the fans already knew a year and a half earlier. I think Star Trek and all it's offspring could've definately seen the same sort of new life on DVD the way Buffy and Angel did if Paramount aimed at making the sets a little more appetizing to a newbie/casual fan.

 

[TravisR]

I certainly don't know the numbers but I would guess that no matter what Star Trek cost, it's never going to sell like Seinfeld or Friends though. I'd also guess that when dealing with a show with a rabid fanbase like Star Trek, the best way to make a profit is to have hardcore fans buy your product at a high price and then eventually drop the price so the casual fan picks it up. I'm sure that's not a great plan for something that is current or very popular (like Seinfeld or Lost or 24 or Friends) but it seems to be HBO's move with most of their shows (though their MSRP is now $60 instead of $100 on new stuff), Paramount's move with Star Trek or even Fox's move with The X-Files*.

*In the case of The X-Files, I guess it was more that they were heading into unknown territory and they charged $150 MSRP. If it was released today, The X-Files would probably be $60 MSRP.

 

[bmasters9]

Example: I saw the first season's worth of "Hawaii Five-O" at the Wal-Mart in Simpsonville last year, I believe, and I held out on it, figuring that I would not enjoy it as much as I did the '80's series that I had before. Finally, I had my mother to purchase it for me, and I put in the first disc of it. I saw the 97-minute 1968 "Cocoon" pilot, and I got hooked on it and the series, mainly because of a well-known television character named Steve McGarrett, and also his legmen (Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly, Kono Kalakaua). Besides the characters and scenery, it was also the opening title sequence and opening music that figured into why "Five-O" still appeals to me to this day. The aforementioned aspects are also why I have all three of the currently released seasons, and why I am planning to get the fourth one when it comes this June.

 

[Robert13]

Over at the other board, someone who is involved with the Silver Spoons dvd release posted about the problems at Sony. They are also having difficulty in getting Hart to Hart released because Sony is dragging their feet. In both cases, the principal actors are involved and, in the case of Hart to Hart, Robert Wagner owns half of the rights to the show and wants the entire series released. These are the actors we're talking about and Sony is still not releasing the shows. So it seems that Sony is really adamant about not releasing anything. Really disheartening but I thought it would offer further insight into the matter.

 

[MatthewA]

Ever since that spokesman's comment about one of their best-selling shows, "Sanford and Son," I get the impression that Sony seems to actively despise their catalog and wants to bury it in obscurity. It's not just sales that's keeping these shows away. They're intent on spoon-feeding us minisodes, but would rather die than even try to sell complete ones. Even if Sir Howard Stringer's wife and kids demand them. We'll get the rest of Bewitched, then after that they might as well close down shop.

I wish they'd spin off Columbia into a separate company. Viacom broke up and it has been a boon for TV on DVD releases of CBS/Paramount shows. If I were Norman Lear I would regret the day I sold Embassy to a soft drink company who, frankly, still did a better job in the movie and TV business than Sony has. What was the last successful Columbia picture not related to the Spider-Man or James Bond franchises? Superbad (which I thought was overrated)?

Every time I watch one of their DVDs or Blu-Rays, or go to their movies, I'll be drinking a Coke in protest.

The only other studio with such a bald-faced contempt for their catalog is Fox, who barely syndicates anything other than M*A*S*H.

 

[MatthewA]

They claim "poor sales," yet Silver Spoons S1 was one of the top selling Amazon.com digital downloads. The "poor sales" claim is, as the French say, merde de cheval. Hand it over to an indie company (Shout! saw Punky Brewster, created by a former writer/producer of Spoons and on either before or after it while on NBC, through to the end), it would be out in its entirety with half as many sales in a timely fashion. If Rick Schroder could pay for the DVD production costs out of his own pocket and did, Sony would still say no.

That absolutely ugly cover art didn't help sales. It looked like a box of detergent, and it used the most generic font possible.

Meanwhile, Fox claims that 150,000 copies of The Mary Tyler Moore Show S1 equals disaster. How much could the costs involved have been? The whole industry is like one big kakistocracy. Do you remember the days when they were up in arms when a movie cost $50,000,000? That's chump change these days. Hollywood is like Washington. Give either of them $100, they manage to end up $1,000 in the hole with it.

I have two letters for Sony. They are the initials of a character on The Odd Couple played by Tony Randall.

 

[MatthewA]

Oh, by the way, the IMDb paints Sony's current financial state as a mixed bag:

Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - Studio Briefing - 14 May 2008

It says that it lost $45 BILLION in operating income and that home entertainment is down 11 percent from last year.

 

[Robert13]

Hmmm, maybe because they keep releasing Adam Sandler movies over and over again and re-issuing I Know What You Did Last Summer.