do discount sales help "abandoned" series? (1 Viewer)

[Jay_B!]

The other day I was at Wally World (Wal-Mart) and noticed an endcap of 19.99 season sets. While there were early sets of DVD hits that will likely be completed (Cheers, King Of Queens, MASH, Roseanne, Frasier) and shows that have been finished already (Tru Calling). There also were several sets of shows that have been abandoned. Everwood, Mad About You (both season sets), Murphy Brown and Night Court.

With a price like that, if they sell a lot of copies of these sets, would it wake Sony and Warner up to decide "you know it's time we give Mad About You/Everwood another shot since it's doing so well" or would the price be too low for them to think it's worth another shot? The reason I pose that question is because of last years Wal-Mart MTM season 1 $14.44 sale... I know a lot of people who picked the set up then for that price, and not long after, Fox announced season 2, and the sets have been coming at you since, and I wonder if the Wal-Mart sale had anything to do with it. And if it had anything to do with resusitating MTM's life on DVD, could the same happen with the aforementioned shows on current sale there?

 

[JeffCNY]

I'd truly like to believe your hopeful theory, but tend to think that the discount price on currently abandoned shows represents an attempt to unload dead media more than anything else. :frowning:

Jeff

 

[Jay_B!]

that could be true, I'd like to hope it's the former since the same endcap has shows like Cheers (up to season 8), MASH (up to season 10) and the sort which have definately been successful on DVD, so I'm staying hopeful that if Night Court or something moves a sufficient number of copies for $14.99, it might cause Warner to reconsider

 

[Mark Talmadge]

I think it does help. There have been several television shows that I normally would not have picked up if it hadn't been for deep discounts on these sets. Out of these:

Gilmore Girls
Smallville
Seinfeld
All in the Family
Pretender

I wouldn't have, normally, picked up these sets if it hadn't been for these type of sales.

 

[TravisR]

I think it can be a help but its usually just them dumping stock (as Jeff said). I'm sure if all of a sudden a show was moving good numbers, it could help but if they're 'dumping' product I'd imagine that those sales numbers would have to be pretty high to make them reconsider releasing more seasons.

 

[MatthewA]

Maybe it would help if Warner had charged less than $26.95 MSRP for 13 episodes of Night Court.

 

[Jon_Gu]

I looked at the end-cap at my local Wally-World tonight and bought one of the two remaining Without a Trace S1 sets for 19.98! Too bad I don't have a little extra cash right now, I need/want about 10 of the sets they're selling.

 

[Malcolm Cleugh]

Unfortunately Warner don't looked at these discounted sales especially with respect to Without a Trace. This has been discussed in a number of threads here in the past that they will only look at full price sales not the large numbers they have been selling at $20. You would think it may indicate they were originally overpriced but they dont seem to get the message.

This is why Without a Trace has only been continued by Warner in Europe, in the UK we get season 3 next week, but not in the US. I can not see this selling massive volumes in the Uk especially at full price, I wait for it to be discounted, but I guess they spread their costs as the same version is sold throughout Europe.

In the Warner chats here they said there are no plans to continue Without a Trace in R1. Unless something sells at the full price volumes of Friends or ER they don't seem to be interested.

Luckily this does not seem to apply as much to their cartoons where a lot of series I never expected to see on DVD have been released although of the long running stuff its only show like the Flintstones which is popular that have continued, most of the others were one offs so not an issue.

 

[Josh_LaF]

If what you say is true, that actually not a good way to do business. If studios only look at full price sales of their sets, that is not a guage of how many people buy the product. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would buy a certain set, just not at full retail price. Personally, I know people who wanted to check out Everwood but didn't want to pay full price, so they ended up waiting for a sale when it was 20 bucks. Now, they want the rest of the series, and wouldn't mind paying full price. I think studios need to realize that discounted DVD sales are not only important because they are still sets sold, but a lot of times bring new buyers to a certain series.

 

[Malcolm Cleugh]

I am just repeating what has been posted here many times in other threads. The Without a Trace comments have been made in other places as well.

I agree it is silly not to include discounted sales in determining how successfull a DVD release has been. There are only a few shows I buy full price, CSI mainly as the R1 full season sets are the price of only half a season in UK R2, so even when these go onto discount, prices are similar. For most other stuff I wait until it has been discounted. As a regular DVD buyer I know it will be discounted usually within 6 months and hence I can afford to buy more DVDs.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

Everyone may think they are just dumping their excess stock but that's not the case at all. When these shows go on for a promotional sale, it serves a double edged process. Helps the distributor dump their stock and also boosts the sale on a particular set and helps bring further seasons to DVD for that particular series.

Please understand that when a store chain sells, for example - Target's recent $19.99 sale for each of the Seinfeld DVD sets, those are promotional sales for that chain ... not the manufacturer. The manufacturer doesn't lose profit fro the sale of those sets, the loss in what the store chain originally paid for the set might be the only one losing profits from what they originally paid for those sets.

It also serves to boost up their profits and helps the company stock.

 

[Jonny P]

Recently, Best Buy had a "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" sale on Universal product.

I'd always wanted to collect "Magnum P.I." but had missed out.

So, I picked up seasons 1-4 for $75 or so at one point during the sale.

It was great for me, and I really have enjoyed watching the set (one of my all-time favorite shows).

Personally, I think that discounts help TV sets that have many seasons out, and are continuing. It means that those who haven't yet collected (or those who aren't caught up) can purchase multiple seasons at a much more affordable price.

Let me give you a "for example"...

I'd love to college "MacGyver" on DVD...problem for me is that there are 6 seasons currently out. The sets are pretty affordable as a general rule, but it seems to be a daunting task to try and collect all of those sets.

If they had some sort of sale (half off or b1g1), I'd definitely start collecting.

 

[Nick Zbu]

Oh, no kidding. A lot of these abondoned series have a lot of dumb marketing history behind them. In most cases--especially with Airwolf--if the suits had done some research they could have put out dual season releases. Most shows don't really pick up speed until a few seasons in (note the Simpsons) and putting out the first season in such a crappy manner and then charging what people would pay for a full season is just idiotic. I don't mean to insult, but it's apparent that some people just don't get the American population's spending habits and their idea of value for money. They might as well just farm the releases out to Anchor Bay or somebody else who might do a more fitting job for less money.

Some companies just don't get the whole idea behind the DVD revolution, do they?

 

[Mark Talmadge]

I'm actually thinking about picking up the Rosanne series on DVD because Target has dropped the prices on Seasons 2 and Seasons 3 down to $19.99. To make things even better, these are the uncut episodes as well. Ehehe ...

 

[Nick Zbu]

Yeah, when the price gets dropped low enough, any DVD set looks good. Heck, I'm pondering if I should get those Good Times sets for $14.44 each and I'm not that much of a fan of the series. Well, John Amos is good in anything....