Anyone feel a bit letdown by Shout! Select? (1 Viewer)

[Neil Brock]

Why am I suddenly having pictures and thoughts of Gollum fill my mind?
Gary "I'm fine with everything I've got so no amount of gigging is going to work" O.

Good one! I had to pause my Dr. Kildare Christmas episode to look that insult up.

 

[Berkshires]

Originally Posted by Gary OS

Why am I suddenly having pictures and thoughts of Gollum fill my mind?

It's these kids today I tell ya!

 

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Neil Brock /forum/thread/312380/anyone-feel-a-bit-letdown-by-shout-select/150#post_3828356

 

[Gary OS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neil Brock



Gary "OK, I'm done with the silliness - back to your regularly scheduled program" O.

 

[TVonDVDJunkie05]

Moving this discussion back on topic, namely the Shout! Select program,


I noticed that thus far in 2011 (through the first 7 months of the year), only three releases have come out through this program- California Dreams S4 in January, Father Knows Best S6 in April & Mister Ed S5 in June. I wonder if the lack of Shout! Select releases is due to the fact that they no longer have the rights to future seasons of shows that have been previously released through this program or that sales have stagnated and thus releases have ceased?! The lack of releases has been one of my beefs with this program, I don't see the point of keeping this program going if they are only going to put out a release here and there?!


To those who will say that this is part of the general slow down in the TV on DVD market, I disagree. Shout! Factory has put out 10 retail releases thus far this year through July (not including animated series releases), so clearly people are still buying stuff albeit not at the same rate as before. They also have put out 4 new series this year (Webster, Dennis the Menace, Kojak & Police Story) so that tells me they are still interested in the TV on DVD market as they continue to seek out more stuff to release.


I wonder what the future is for this program, any thoughts?

 

[Ethan Riley]

Moving this discussion back on topic, namely the Shout! Select program,


I noticed that thus far in 2011 (through the first 7 months of the year), only three releases have come out through this program- California Dreams S4 in January, Father Knows Best S6 in April & Mister Ed S5 in June. I wonder if the lack of Shout! Select releases is due to the fact that they no longer have the rights to future seasons of shows that have been previously released through this program or that sales have stagnated and thus releases have ceased?! The lack of releases has been one of my beefs with this program, I don't see the point of keeping this program going if they are only going to put out a release here and there?!


To those who will say that this is part of the general slow down in the TV on DVD market, I disagree. Shout! Factory has put out 10 retail releases thus far this year through July (not including animated series releases), so clearly people are still buying stuff albeit not at the same rate as before. They also have put out 4 new series this year (Webster, Dennis the Menace, Kojak & Police Story) so that tells me they are still interested in the TV on DVD market as they continue to seek out more stuff to release.


I wonder what the future is for this program, any thoughts?

Hmm...for a company named "Shout!" they seem awfully quiet on these issues lately. I don't know what happened to California Dreams...there's only one season left and suddenly there's a "Best Of" release coming out to stores next week from Mill Creek! Maybe we need to give them all our love from now on???

 

[JoeDoakes]

I'm not subscribing to all the negative things, but there again, this "I hope no one from Shout is offended by this" comment is to me indicative of the strange knee-jerk reaction to shield Shout from the kind of criticism we take for granted when talking about other studios. Does this mean there's a fear that if there's criticism of Shout! in a message board, they'll take umbrage and not release anything more out of spite? That's what it comes off as to me. "At least Shout has not been selling often unwatchable "collector prints"" Is this supposed to be a reference to Timeless? Well it seems to me that Timeless has no control over that if Universal won't let those titles in question out of the vault and force Timeless to scrounge up discarded 16mm prints from around the world just to get *some* kind of DVD release out for a title that we know would otherwise never see the light of day.

I was referring to Timeless, but I did not name them because it wasn't my intention to knock them as much as to show how much Shout is doing right and how, even if they make an error now and then, it still beats the alternative. Also, I heard that Timeless's collector print practice was not caused by Universal not allowing prints out of the vault, but by Universal charging separately for licensing a show and using Universal prints. I heard Timeless simply did not want to pay the extra money. Again, my intention was not to knock Timeless, with their releases of Wagon Train and The Virginian, they seem to be paying more attention to quality, and their Gene Autry and maybe the upcoming Roy Rogers Show (depending on print quality) collections will be doing a major service. It seems to me that Timeless collector print collections have plusses and minuses. On the plus side, they may revive interest in a forgotten show that would never see the light of day again if not for their release. On the negative side, especially where Timeless issues a complete series set with collector prints (M Squad), it may discourage anyone from ever attempting a first or second class release to have the competition on the market. For example, A&E is apparently set to release Darren McGavin's Mike Hammer series. Given A&E's history, it will probably contain good quality prints. If Timeless had already issued the show in a collector print format, would A&E take the chance? Probably not. For a discussion of the good and the bad with Timeless, see this thread regarding the Soldiers of Fortune tv show release they did (http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/35038/SOLDIERS-OF-FORTUNE). The show itself looks terriffic. The print quality -- well . . .

 

[Statskeeper]

In all fairness I have to take back my previous comment of not finding the Shout Select titles for streaming. I went through the Amazon Prime list last night and found both seasons 1 and 2 of Marcus Welby available for $1.99 an episode. They also had Mr. Ed and Father Knows Best but not Ironside. Perhaps streaming is the future for titles that won't sell enough copies to make a commercial DVD run viable.

 

[Neil Brock]

I was referring to Timeless, but I did not name them because it wasn't my intention to knock them as much as to show how much Shout is doing right and how, even if they make an error now and then, it still beats the alternative. Also, I heard that Timeless's collector print practice was not caused by Universal not allowing prints out of the vault, but by Universal charging separately for licensing a show and using Universal prints. I heard Timeless simply did not want to pay the extra money. Again, my intention was not to knock Timeless, with their releases of Wagon Train and The Virginian, they seem to be paying more attention to quality, and their Gene Autry and maybe the upcoming Roy Rogers Show (depending on print quality) collections will be doing a major service. It seems to me that Timeless collector print collections have plusses and minuses. On the plus side, they may revive interest in a forgotten show that would never see the light of day again if not for their release. On the negative side, especially where Timeless issues a complete series set with collector prints (M Squad), it may discourage anyone from ever attempting a first or second class release to have the competition on the market. For example, A&E is apparently set to release Darren McGavin's Mike Hammer series. Given A&E's history, it will probably contain good quality prints. If Timeless had already issued the show in a collector print format, would A&E take the chance? Probably not. For a discussion of the good and the bad with Timeless, see this thread regarding the Soldiers of Fortune tv show release they did (http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/35038/SOLDIERS-OF-FORTUNE). The show itself looks terriffic. The print quality -- well . . .

Like it or not, they are in business to make a profit and that being the case, other factors are involved. Over the last couple of years, since the big fire, Universal has taken stock of what they actually have stored in their various warehouses and facilities. Many 16mm prints have now surfaced and been made available whereas before, Timeless was able to get rights from Universal but had no access to elements, save for whatever they could scrounge up for themselves. A great many Universal black and white 16mm prints had flooded the collector's market 20 years ago and Timeless was using what it could acquire of that as well as tape transfers people had made from those prints. Sometimes when a show is so obscure and such a small sales potential exists, they will go the cheap route as that's the only way to turn a profit as even 16mm film transferring costs decent money. As for the example of Mike Hammer, Universal mastered the whole series to tape when they sold it to Encore Mystery back in the 90s so A&E doesn't have to pay anything other than licensing costs. Much different when you are talking about show that Universal hasn't touched in 40 or 50 years. Universal has the 35mm masters on all of their shows but if someone wanted to access those, well a one-season show with 30 episodes would cost over 200K just in what they would charge to transfer the prints. That's not counting licensing costs or DVD authoring or packaging. What 50 year old show that practically no one alive even remembers could justify those costs? As it is, people on here whinge all of the time over something costing $10 or $20 more than they like. How much do you think someone would have to charge if it cost them a quarter of a million dollars just to get it on the market?

 

[JoeDoakes]

Like it or not, they are in business to make a profit and that being the case, other factors are involved. Over the last couple of years, since the big fire, Universal has taken stock of what they actually have stored in their various warehouses and facilities. Many 16mm prints have now surfaced and been made available whereas before, Timeless was able to get rights from Universal but had no access to elements, save for whatever they could scrounge up for themselves. A great many Universal black and white 16mm prints had flooded the collector's market 20 years ago and Timeless was using what it could acquire of that as well as tape transfers people had made from those prints. Sometimes when a show is so obscure and such a small sales potential exists, they will go the cheap route as that's the only way to turn a profit as even 16mm film transferring costs decent money. As for the example of Mike Hammer, Universal mastered the whole series to tape when they sold it to Encore Mystery back in the 90s so A&E doesn't have to pay anything other than licensing costs. Much different when you are talking about show that Universal hasn't touched in 40 or 50 years. Universal has the 35mm masters on all of their shows but if someone wanted to access those, well a one-season show with 30 episodes would cost over 200K just in what they would charge to transfer the prints. That's not counting licensing costs or DVD authoring or packaging. What 50 year old show that practically no one alive even remembers could justify those costs? As it is, people on here whinge all of the time over something costing $10 or $20 more than they like. How much do you think someone would have to charge if it cost them a quarter of a million dollars just to get it on the market?

Very interesting. I had not heard that Universal does not charge for transfers when they have some available. As I said, my intention was not to knock Timeless. I realize that there is an argument for what they do.

 

[Mr. Papagiorgio]

Yet more Mystery Science taking the place of tv shows...

 

[vnisanian2001]

Yet more Mystery Science taking the place of tv shows...

Not good. Not good at all. I mean, I know MST3K is Shout's most popular show, and it's not like I wasn't aware of that before, but there seems to be way too much right now. On the other hand, I sure hope that sales for them skyrocket so that maybe, just maybe, they'll continue with whatever series' they've currently stopped, or at least the ones that are near completion. I see that the majority of Shout! classics that have stopped so far are Fox programs. I don't think it's so much of Fox not letting them have more episodes of whatever show they've released from them so far at ANY price, but rather Fox not wanting to give them at a price that Shout is willing to offer, especially when you tie that in with the normal sales drop-off on subsequent season set releases with classic shows. And I hate to be beating a dead horse, but I asked Shout back in December if their relationship with Fox had anything to do with why Paper Chase wasn't doing so well. Brian said it wasn't the case. It was just a matter of some shows on DVD selling better than others, that's all. I'm sure they continue to work together. And if I'm not mistaken, didn't Shout just release a Roger Corman film that Fox owns?

 

[cliff mac]

Not good. Not good at all. I mean, I know MST3K is Shout's most popular show, and it's not like I wasn't aware of that before, but there seems to be way too much right now. On the other hand, I sure hope that sales for them skyrocket so that maybe, just maybe, they'll continue with whatever series' they've currently stopped, or at least the ones that are near completion. I see that the majority of Shout! classics that have stopped so far are Fox programs. I don't think it's so much of Fox not letting them have more episodes of whatever show they've released from them so far at ANY price, but rather Fox not wanting to give them at a price that Shout is willing to offer, especially when you tie that in with the normal sales drop-off on subsequent season set releases with classic shows. And I hate to be beating a dead horse, but I asked Shout back in December if their relationship with Fox had anything to do with why Paper Chase wasn't doing so well. Brian said it wasn't the case. It was just a matter of some shows on DVD selling better than others, that's all. I'm sure they continue to work together. And if I'm not mistaken, didn't Shout just release a Roger Corman film that Fox owns?

Our deal with Fox was not for an entire series... but for certain seasons. We have released everything we had the rights to. We would have to advance more money for these additional series and unfortunately the later seasons... or even first season didn't sell enough copies to warrant us picking up the additional seasons. If you want to see the additional seasons you'll have to see Fox has any plans. Fox Television and Fox theatrical are seperate divisions.

 

[cliff mac]

Hmm...for a company named "Shout!" they seem awfully quiet on these issues lately. I don't know what happened to California Dreams...there's only one season left and suddenly there's a "Best Of" release coming out to stores next week from Mill Creek! Maybe we need to give them all our love from now on???

TV on DVD sales are declining, so it makes acquiring (or continuing) a lot of shows impossible because of the music costs and licensing fees to the studios. The studios keep digital rights and we are left with just physical rights... and unless it's a big show... or a show with little music.. it's hard to recoup your investment in the show. Shows like ADAM-12 and KOJAK have very little music, so as long as there are still people buying them, we can afford to release them. SIMON & SIMON's later seasons have more music than the earlier seasons, so we can't afford to clear the music and turn a profit... or even break even. The Shout Select selections have been small this year because of music costs. We sell quite a bit less on our site, so it's harder to justify clearing the music financially.... and the reason they are on Shout Select is because retailers won't take subsequent seasons. In the end, this is a business and if we can't make a return on our investment, we won't be around very long.

 

[TVonDVDJunkie05]

TV on DVD sales are declining, so it makes acquiring (or continuing) a lot of shows impossible because of the music costs and licensing fees to the studios.
The studios keep digital rights and we are left with just physical rights... and unless it's a big show... or a show with little music.. it's hard to recoup your investment in the show.
Shows like ADAM-12 and KOJAK have very little music, so as long as there are still people buying them, we can afford to release them. SIMON & SIMON's later seasons have more music than the earlier seasons, so we can't afford to clear the music and turn a profit... or even break even.

Cliff mac,


A big thanks for your posts and the updates you have provided us. I know several members on this board (me included) have expressed our frustration regarding various titles your company has released but at the end of the day you have not turned your back on us and continue to give us information. This is one of the things I like about Shout! Factory and what sets you apart from the big conglomerates- you care about your customers and actually take the time to answer questions, address complaints or give updates on various titles.


From my understanding of what you have posted, most of the older titles you have released are stalled either due to low sales or because you do not have the rights to further seasons- correct?! I think that is too bad that FOX is playing hardball and is not facing reality. I am sure that your asking price to acquire additional seasons of various shows is fair based on sales of previous seasons and current market value of the show itself. Yet these suits up in their high towers only care about what they want. Based on this attitude I think that the shows you licensed from them (Rhoda, Mr. Belvedere & The Paper Chase) are done as far as DVD releases go, unfortunately. They don't appear to be willing to change their asking price and I am sure that your company is not willing to pay more then your asking price- rightfully so I might add since you have sales figures to back up your claim.


Good to hear that you are invested in more releases of Adam-12 & Kojak, I hope they sell well so that you can release all remaining seasons. I hope you will not completely abandon Simon & Simon and re-visit it again some day when this damn economy starts picking up again (who knows when that will be?!)


One final note, is Shout! looking into acquiring the rights to any other shows from Paramount? From what I see, Webster is doing very well for you (3 releases in one year and a fourth one to come- I am pleasantly surprised at how well it has done). I have to think that Paramount is happy that this title is selling well, hopefully they will look into giving you the rights to release some of their many stalled series- permitting Shout! Factory is interested?!


Thanks again for the info!

 

[vnisanian2001]

(Rhoda, Mr. Belvedere & The Paper Chase)

Just tell me a few things: Is it disrespectful to have faith that at least two of those shows will be completed by Shout! one day, and is it disrespectful to have faith that one day, they will eventually work things out with Fox?

 

[Mark Collins]

Peyton Place Fans thought that Shout Select would be the perfect fit for a series like Peyton Place. The name of the show still brings a smile to the faces of those who remember Peyton Place. The fact Fox would not deal with for the release of more episode's states much.

 

[MatthewA]

This thread answers a lot of my questions (and confirms my suspicions about the studios' greed):


http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/313964/shout-factory-why-the-different-lease-patterns

Originally Posted by TVonDVDJunkie05

Webster also has a fair bit of music to clear, which has all been cleared (just finished watching Season 3, great job guys!). I wish they had made a deal with Shout! years ago so that so many of those shows they own wouldn't have been cranked out with every note of music stripped. We do not need to go over the Fugitive debacle again.


Ironically, the podcast Justmyshow.com recently interviewed Susan Clark, who told the interviewer that Paramount told her the show is still in the red. Not out of character for them considering the recent Happy Days lawsuit.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TVonDVDJunkie05


Cliff mac,


A big thanks for your posts and the updates you have provided us. I know several members on this board (me included) have expressed our frustration regarding various titles your company has released but at the end of the day you have not turned your back on us and continue to give us information. This is one of the things I like about Shout! Factory and what sets you apart from the big conglomerates- you care about your customers and actually take the time to answer questions, address complaints or give updates on various titles.

Agree. Thanks Cliff for hanging in here, as well as on the movie section of this forum.

 

[vnisanian2001]

Ahem, I asked a question earlier in this thread: Is it disrespectful to have faith that at least two of those three Fox shows that Nick mentioned will be completed by Shout! one day, and is it disrespectful to have faith that one day, they will eventually work things out with Fox?