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The "TV on DVD conference".... (1 Viewer)

Paul Drake

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Thank you Gord for your thoughtful reply.

To clarify my original post, my rationale for saying "huge potential market" is that I was referring to those shows that have been syndicated endlessly since their original runs and have thus built up multi-generational fan support. You mentioned some and others such as "Get Smart" or "Batman" have been requested by many fans on these boards.

No, I don't think we're going to see season sets of "The Defenders" or "Burke's Law" anytime soon. But if it's a show with consistently high exposure I'm sure the sales will be there if the sets are marketed right.

What may hinder some classic shows more than anything will be their longetivity. Will consumers really want to fill up their house with 20 seasonal box sets of "Gunsmoke"? Even my own personal #1 want for DVD, "Perry Mason", ran 271 hour long episodes which would run close to 70 single sided DVD's (assuming 4 episodes per disc).

Your point:
If you see an older show you want, buy it. If these old shows don't sell well then the releases will stop.
can't be overstated.
 

David Von Pein

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..."if they don't come, stop building it." If a studio releases S1 of a series and not enough people buy it they will stop. They would be idiots not to.
Then what's stopping them from selling the video/DVD rights to another company which is willing to "take a chance" on subsequent seasons?

If FOX has absolutely no intention, EVER, of releasing future MTMs...why not sell the video rights?? Why keep Mary S.2-->7 cooped-up in a closet somewhere when some company could be making use of the product?
 

Casey Trowbridg

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I've got some questions
1. How well did the first season of M*A*S*H sell? Sure we're getting future seasons, but how did this particular season do. I know it didn't hit number 1 or anything, but was it more than just break even for Fox on the deal?
2. Was there a drop off of sales between s1 and s2? What about between s2 and s3? In other words did more people just buy season 1 of M*A*S*H and not season 2, and if so how big was the drop? How bad would s5 have to sell for s6 not to come out? Or, does fox say: "so s5 didn't sell well but 1-4 did, lets produce s6 and see what happens?
3. If MTM had not cost as much to produce as it did, would we have gotten future volumes, figuring that while it didn't sell all that well, it cost less to produce?
4. I am assuming that a set like M*A*S*H cost less to produce than the MTM set. Is this assumption correct?

I've been curious about this for a long time as someone that owns 4 seasons of M*A*S*H and plans for all 11.about M*A*S*H that I'll post here and all of this might be used by me down the line to further defend the viability of MTM future seasons.
 

StacyV

Second Unit
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Oct 13, 2003
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279
This is why I have 2 seasons of the Jeffersons, 3 of Sanford and Son and 2 of All in the Family.
:emoji_thumbsup: Could you also help out the Good Times and Soap causes as well and pick up their respective first season sets, if you haven't already? I'm going nuts waiting for Good Times season two.
 

Casey Trowbridg

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StacyV, I forgot to mention that I have a season of Good Times. I'm not sure about /Soap, as I've never really watched that show.

I'm going to rewrite what I wrote in the MWC thread, where people were talking about not buying the first season because of the poor transfer.

I'm a fan of a show, lets say Married with Children. I see season 1 has been released, but I hesitate to buy it because of a bad transfer or lack of extras, or because I don't want to commit unless I know that season 2 is going to come out. So, I don't buy MWC season 1, because of these factors. I don't buy that season, and neither do a lot of other people, so Columbia decides that they're not going to release future seasons. So lets look at what happened.

1. I don't have Married with Children season 1 because of my boycott.
2. I have helped to ensure that I won't have future seasons of MWC.
So what did I accomplish really? I hurt my own cause because now I don't have anything of a show that I actually wanted on DVD.

I've said this so many times. Yes, I'm frustrated that MTM season 2 isn't coming out, but you know what, I'm still happy to have season 1. So at least I have that much.
 

David Von Pein

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I'm frustrated that MTM season 2 isn't coming out, but you know what, I'm still happy to have season 1. So at least I have that much.
I agree as well.
I should have made that clear within my ranting & raving previously. :)

But, yes, S.1 is great to have. Always will be great to own. It's just that we've now been treated to one-seventh of a delicious treat; and now have the other
six-sevenths snatched from our grasp. It's hard to accept...that's all. (Esp. a show of this fine quality.)
 

Casey Trowbridg

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David, believe me I understand. Farmer Ted, Chuckles Bites the Dust, and my favorite episode of MTM ever where Ted and Lou gamble on football. I want them all, which is why I'm wondering if they followed the M*A*S*H model for MTM, would they be able to make more money off of them since they're spending less to produce them in the first place?

Here's a question, which sold more/was more profitable for fox. M*A*S*H season 1, or Mary Tyler Moore S. 1.
 

Jeffrey

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MTM campers, have faith....If the Dick Van Dyke sets from Image are doing well as sales figures on the online retailers indicate, I think this might give FOX some incentive to pick up where they left off with Season 1; they'd be missing a golden opportunity to not ride the coat tails of the latter season sets of DVD.

Jeffrey
 

David Von Pein

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If the Dick Van Dyke sets from Image are doing well as sales figures on the online retailers indicate, I think this might give FOX some incentive to pick up where they left off with Season 1; they'd be missing a golden opportunity to not ride the coat tails of the latter season sets of DVD.
That'd be nice.

The D.V.Dyke sets rank as #60 and #54 best-sellers @ DVD Empire currently. Not too shabby. (Of course, the fact that Empire is *still* listing an incorrectly-low MSRP (by $10) might have something to do with these sales numbers.)
 

Joseph DeMartino

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If FOX has absolutely no intention, EVER, of releasing future MTMs... why not sell the video rights??
1) You don't understand the psychology of the studios. Their "properties" are potential gold. They would rather do nothing with themselves than license them to a third party because they might want to do something with them somewhere down the road. I'm not making this up. This is almost literally what Joe Straczynski was told by the people at Warner Bros. when he tried to get them to license his show, Babylon 5, for VHS or LD release while it was still in production. After patiently explaining to him that there was no possible market for the show on VHS (which is why Warner Bros. itself wouldn't release the series on home video) the WHV rep then explained that they couldn't license it to anyone else because that might preclude them from doing their own release down the road.

2) Fox would get a license fee plus royalties on units sold. Depending on the numbers it still might not make financial sense if the anticipated units sold doesn't reach a certain level.

3) The studios generally see DVD as different than previous home video formats. They are much less willing as a general rule to licesne product to third parties, period. The Criterion Collection must be hanging on by its fingertips.

Regards,

Joe
 

David Von Pein

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and my favorite episode of MTM ever where Ted and Lou gamble on football.
Ah, yes, "The System" (January 1975).

At least there's still the 7-tape VHS "Best Of" box. The quality isn't bad (for tape)...except for a bit of somewhat unnecessary (and annoying) "added" sound effects during many of the WJM office scenes.

Much of the charm of the MTM Show (to me anyway) was that Mary's work life consisted of this close-knit "family" at WJM-TV. It was a very small operation. But I've noticed on the 1997 VHS prints of some episodes, there are added "typewriter and telephone" noises throughout the newsroom. Which, to me, is a silly addition to the soundtrack. For some reason (after the fact) the video producers wanted to "liven up" the WJM workplace. Don't know why. The plethora of clanking typewriters and phones ringing in the background do not fit with the smallness of Mary's working environment.

Anyway, "The System" and "Chuckles" can be found on VHS. In addition to another fave, "The Dinner Party" (with Henry Winkler, who "just got fired" :D).

 

Casey Trowbridg

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Here's another thought, and man I really should have my own collumn or something.

Maybe, Columbia Tristar has it right when it comes to producing these sets.
Part of the appeal for having a classic show on DVD is that, you may be able to get seasons of a show that isn't running in your area but you nonetheless absolutely love. It is this fact that might cause a person to buy 1 of these classic shows without extras. Just the show is enough in this case.

Now, lets take a look at current shows like Friends. I can watch at minimum 10 episodes of Friends during the week on my Fox affiliate, and that's not counting the first run episodes on NBC. So, when a season of friends comes out, you've got a lot of people saying, why should I buy this when I can watch it at home for nothing? Which is where extra material such as deleted sceens and audio commentaries come in. You might need more bonus material to sell a show that is currently on the air.

Classic TV is different. Sure I'm glad the Dick Van Dyke sets are loaded with bonus material, but I bought the set because it is the Dick Van Dyke Show. Would Sanford and Son sell better if there were extras for each season? Sure, when it gets to season 5 then maybe you slap a retrospective on as an overview of all 5 seasons, but just owning Sanford and Son on DVD will be enough for some.

Thoughts?
 

Dane Marvin

Screenwriter
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1,490
WHY can't FOX try another tack instead of just trashing the whole MTM franchise, such as re-releasing Season 1 in a "smaller dose" version (such as a 3-discer without the 4th disc of extras) and drop the MSRP accordingly?
Fox should sell the DVD rights to Image Entertainment. It would go hand-in-hand with their Dick Van Dyke Show releases, which are, in my opinion, the standard by which all classic TV on DVD releases should be measured.

We should note that Fox is only releasing one classic show on DVD currently (M*A*S*H). Sooner or later -- when shows like Futurama and Buffy end their run on DVD -- Fox is going to have to focus its energy elsewhere.

Without a large number of great NEW shows on DVD, they'll eventually turn to their older properties. Hence, the poll they recently ran (or are currently running) with such shows as "The Wonder Years" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" included. I expect when Fox goes back to the classics, we might see MTM get a second chance.
 

David Von Pein

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Good points, Casey. You may be right.

Which is part of the point I was trying to make earlier (re. MTM-2 and extras). Since a lengthy Making-Of was already included in S.1, surely there's no reason to re-visit an additional long feature of this kind (especially since the Season One documentary actually covers ALL 7 MTM seasons, and not just S.1).

So, future MTM seasons could easily be accepted by many buyers in a "bones"-type fashion, since so many extras are already contained on their S.1 sets.

I guess the opposite approach could be used on Sanford & Son (or AITF too)....with a doc. of some kind at the END of the season boxed sets.

(Although, you'd have to pay ME to buy any Sanford DVDs. Never saw the appeal of that show personally. But, I guess, that just goes to prove .... "it's all a matter of taste" when it comes to one show selling over another.)

Now..."Good Times 2" I'll take! (Since John Amos was still in the fold. :) :D)
 

Casey Trowbridg

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Bare bones is obviously working for Fox regarding M*A*S*H, or they wouldn't continue selling it.

My personal wish for M*A*S*H is since the final episode is so long, that is when they choose to put special features on the set. a 2 disc set 1 containing the last episode, and another containing Making of, a reunion special, and all that fun stuff would be a good way to cap a series IMO.

David, regarding Good Times, I couldn't agree more with your comment, it was a great show until he left.
 

David Lambert

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Oh, I meant to talk about Jeffrey's post, too:



Jeffrey, unless you're an exec with Fox who knows something the rest of us don't, I think that this is just plain optimism.

I think that Fox's position would be that the shows are distant enough in appeal to audience groups (the black-and-white vs. color puts it in an "older audience age group" mindset immediately), different enough in cast ("Mary wasn't the *STAR* of TDVDS like she was of TMTMS; Van Dyke may the appealing factor here"), and - most of all - have sufficiently different financial underpinnings (dead obvious since they are coming from a completely different set of legal rights, restoration situation, royalty outlays, sales strategies, even box design) that even if Fox had access to Image's confidential sales data somehow I am not certain that the numbers would influence them much about MTMS releases.

That's just my opinion of course. Ventura Distribution had started to schedule the reunion movie "Mary & Rhoda" for this coming January, but now it's delayed until sometime later in the year. Whenever that hits, if Fox sees copies of that sucker just literally flying off of shelves, THEN they may re-think their position on releases of the rest of the show. If they get bored and run out of ideas for DVD sets (not TOO bloody likely, but you never know), then they may revisit the show's DVD strategy anyway. I believe it's lain dormant because - having "failed" with S1 - they are now concentrating energy elsewhere and just really aren't thinking much about TMTMS on DVD. Something will have to happen and wake them back up to the idea that the show can be a hit on home video. What that something is, I dunno. I doubt a petition will do it, though. :shrug:
 

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