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

[Dave Scarpa]

Also Fox Could do what Image has done with the Dick Van Dyke releases and release the first two seasons at the same time at least putting the fears to rest that another season won't be forthcoming.

 

[George See]

QUANTUM LEAP, please please please please

Wasn't Quantum Leap already anounced or released? I could have swore I read that somewhere. I'd pick that one up if I saw it sitting the shelf.

I picked up the Tick this week, hopefully it will get some decent numbers and someone will consider releasing the cartoon. It's got the whole cult following thing going on I think they could sell a decent amount of the Cartoon sets if they ever put them out.

Does anyone know how the studios feel about the VCD sets that are usually available on EBAY? Are they technically Illegal? Do they look at that sort of thing to gauge demand? Cause right now there's about 33 bids on a party of five bootleg DVD set and about 20 bids on VHS tapes. I've been seriously considering picking up "party of five" for my wife from there, cause I don't think it's ever coming out. And she told me the other day she'd trade all her friends box sets for even the first season of Party of five, so she's getting desparate

 

[Gord Lacey]

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?

A better question would be, "why should we keep releasing something when we can make more money off something else?"

The studios don't have infinite resources to work on these projects. If they aren't making enough money on the sets then I understand why they stop releasing them. The difference between having the extras in the set, or left out, might not make a huge difference to the entire cost. Using imaginary numbers, if it costs $1 million to transfer, author and create the DVD set, and $50,000 for the bonus material, then leaving the bonus material off the set doesn't make much of a dent in the $1 million that would have to be spent.

Even for a bare bones release you're still paying for:
DVD transfer
Authoring
Replication
Packaging
Marketing

As much as I hate seeing shows dropped after 1 season, I completely support the studios. This is a business and they have to make money off it.

Gord

 

[Gord Lacey]

Wasn't Quantum Leap already anounced or released? I could have swore I read that somewhere. I'd pick that one up if I saw it sitting the shelf.

It was part of the shows that Universal "announced" and then did nothing with. Image Entertainment released a DVD of it, but it's long been out of print.

Guess what problem Quantum Leap faces; music licensing.

Gord

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

David, thanks for your reply. I guess I wasn't figuring anyone to have hard numbers, I was mainly asking for curiousity sake. Like you said, ultimately I answered my own question.

Gord, thanks for the info regarding how much it costs, even if your numbers aren't standard the point saying that simply dropping special features wouldn't make much of a difference which was really what I was wondering about in regard to MTM.

 

[George See]

Guess what problem Quantum Leap faces; music licensing.

Well I guess that clears that up thanks for the reply. It's a little dissapointing that they apparantly didn't figure out a solution to the music problem at the conference. Why do I get the feeling it's the RIAA that's being difficult to work with in that regards. I really think it could be mutually beneficial for them to loosen the reigns so to speak. I mean it's free advertising...and in light of the slumping CD sales i'd think they'd jump all over it. I'm sure something could be worked out where the record companys get an insert into the dvd packaging advertising the music in the shows, or maybe even a special feature/music credits section on the dvd's themselves. maybe i'm over simplifying the problem but really this whole music license thing seems silly to me.

 

[TheLongshot]

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?

That was my attitude about ST:NG for a long time.

While what you say about classic TV is true, it is a question of finding an audience that actually wants to own the series on DVD.

To be honest, there aren't a huge amount of TV shows that I really want to own on DVD, and what I want is not nessicarily classic (Brisco County, for one).

I think it is easier to sell a more recent show than a classic show because it is fresher in people's minds. To be honest, I didn't really watch TMTMS as a kid, tho I was aware of it. Those I did watch (Dukes Of Hazzard comes to mind), haven't aged all that well...

Jason

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Why do I get the feeling it's the RIAA that's being difficult to work with in that regards.

Because they're the current internet bogeyman, and because you probably don't know much about this stuff.

Look, to a great degree the studios brought this on themselves. They never saw home video as a future home for their series, and they didn't take syndication seriously enough to care that they might have to change the music later. So they didn't bother licensing the music beyond the initial network broadcasts. (I don't even know if the original music was used in overseas broadcasts for a lot of these shows, or if they had to deal with rights holders in each country for each song.

Given that nobody made a deal to use this music on something like DVD, those who own the rights (who are sometimes the publishers and artists, not the record labels, since DVD use may not fall under the original recording contracts - another complicating factor) are striking a hard bargain. Can't say I blame them.

One possible solution might be to buy cheaper "cover" versions of some of the songs - not the ideal answer, but at least it puts the right song at the right point in the story (where this is important) or ties the story to the right point in time, even if it isn't the original artist we're listening to. This would certainly be preferable to some generic instrumental music being inserted.

It is not an easy problem, there are various people who have legitimate claims to being fairly compensated for their work and their property and it is frankly childish to look for "villains" to blame for the situation. Folks are going to have to try to negotiate in good faith. Ultimately as the DVD biz grows they may be convinced that part of something is better than all of nothing. (Which applies to the studios as much as anybody else. Part of their claim that the music rights are too expensive comes from the fact that the rights-holders would be one more party who would have to be paid royalties out of what otherwise would be studio profits. All the "greed" isn't on one side here.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Randy A Salas]

While the questions themselves raise good points, you must realize that the answers represent financial data that Fox would consider proprietary and confidential and would not be sharing.

Some Fox numbers did come out of the conference. I don't have my notes handy, but it was announced that the biggest-selling TV release of all time is The Simpsons: Season 2 with sales well below 2 million units. The Family Guy was cited as another big Fox seller, although I don't recall a number being attached to it. (Side note here: Given that DVD players are in about half of all U.S. homes, it's not that impressive to me that the biggest TV release ever sold less than 2 million units.)

But here's the important part: During the marketing panel, Fox noted that all sets of a particular series sell within a small fraction of each other. In other words, although Season 2 of The Simpsons is the biggest seller, the unit sales of the other Simpsons seasons are pretty close. The X-Files also was held up as an example. The implication was that the trend is true of all of Fox's season sets.

Given that sales pattern, if sales of MTM 1 were below expectations, Fox has no reason to believe that they will ever get better. That would fly in the face of what they know about how subsequent sets of a series sell. That is arguably the biggest reason that the MTM sets have stalled.

 

[Dane Marvin]

Randy - thanks for sharing the info about the sales figures. It's good to know that if a show sells well enough with a first season set, Fox can trust that subsequent seasons of the series will be about the same.

So the question I have is... did Malcolm in the Middle season 1 sell enough?

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Randy, thanks for the info. You helped to shed some light on the thing I am most curious about, which is are there significant drop-offs between purchases of season 1 of a show and season 2, and if other studeos besides fox have found the same thing than I'm going to get go ahead and assume that while there might be some drop off its still fairly consistent.

I am also curious about Malcolm in the Middle, but I'm wondering if it isn't something else keeping it off the shelves and not poor s. 1 sales. Fox typically isn't as irratic about these kinds of things like oh I don't know, Columbia?

My final thought for this post anyway is, that it is amazing what can change in a year. I remember reading a quote perhaps it was in a Fox chat on HTF, that due to music issues, in living color would not be released, or that it wasn't likely, yet here we are with it coming out feb. 3. I would hope this set sells well since I'm guessing due to music rights this 1 might cost a little more to produce than some of the other shows that Fox has put out.

 

[Randy A Salas]

I have my notes handy now with the Fox numbers.

The Simpsons: Season 2 is the biggest-selling TV DVD set ever with 1.8 million units sold to date. The biggest-selling TV release so far this year (units) is The Family Guy, Vol. 2. Fox is the leader in sales of TV DVDs, with a 21 percent share of the money spent on the genre through the first nine months of this year.

(The biggest-selling TV title in revenue is HBO's Band of Brothers, with a whopping $109 million in sales.)

 

[George See]

I am not looking for bogeymen or villains i'm looking for some common sense. I find the whole thing completely backwards. Now a days you need to pay to get a song out there on the radio and heard by the public. And here are these TV Show on DVD producers who are looking to use your song and get it heard by the public but you want to charge them to do it? I might not be the most knowledgable person about the inner workings of the music business, but common sense would dictate that if people hear your song and they like it, they might buy the album/concert tickets/t-shirts. A song on a tv-show is just like advertising, the artists/record companys/producers/studio janitor, should be paying the tv-shows to use their song. It's product placement usually you pay for that...When was the last time Friends paid Pepsi to have Monica drink a pepsi on the show?

 

[TheLongshot]

Except that, in a lot of cases here, it is the opposite. The TV show is using the song because it fits a scene, not because they are promoting someone else's music. There are shows where that is the case ("Birds Of Prey" comes to mind.), but often, a song is used for a particular reason in a soundtrack, and isn't randomly inserted for promo purposes. If that was true, there would be no problem in replacing music.

Jason

 

[Brian McHale]

The music issue has been beat to death, but I'll throw in my $0.02.

The Music licensing problem is not as simple as the RIAA, the music labels or the artists coming out and saying "you can't release that with my (our) music unless you pay a bunch of money". The fact is that they can't release a show with copyrighted music unless they have permission. In the vast majority of cases, home video didn't even exist when the shows were shot, so no one even considered the possiblity you might want to license the music for anything other than broadcast. So, if they want to release WKRP or Miami Vice with original music, they have to get permission. The problem is that there is not only one or two different people or groups to deal with. Every single song is likely to have dozens of people who own some part of the rights. There's the artist who performed it. There's the songwriter. There's the label. There's the publisher. Others who might figure in would be producers, engineers, musicians, etc.

To gain the rights for even one song is a very big undertaking. Even if everyone involved was willing to let them use it for free, it would still be a big job just to get everyone to sign the deal (and they're not going to do it for free). Now, multiply this by how many songs per episode and the number of episodes and you start to see just how impossible the situation becomes.

The bottom line: newer shows almost certainly all have home video provisions in their licensing agreements; older shows that used a lot of music are unlikely ever to see a home video release with original music.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

The only way to get out the further sets of MTM would have to be to cut the budget.

I'd say if we're going to get any more sets, all extras are going to be shafted, fewer discs, etc. etc.

 

[Jim Beaver]

You know i've been thinking about some stuff that of course everybody already knows about. As cool as Tv show on dvd are they still have a few kinks and problems to work out.

1 - Music Rights -

Seems to be the biggest problem for DVD so far if someone can cure this it should be smooth sailing for many DVD ships.

2 - Releasing Furthur Season Sets -

A show comes out you want you buy it but then guess what season two dosen't come out. Examples include Larry Sanders, Mary Tyler Moore, Malcom in the Middle etc. Now if it didn't sell that well I can completly understand as Cash is king if there's no money there's no DVD plain and simple. So I think because of this mindset think of tv series as movies if you really like a show buy it. Most people buy movies for that reason and have tons of them there's no reason we can't treat TV shows like that.

3 - Bad Buisness/Marketing -

Now the TV Game is pretty new so some people may not get it. It's quite upsetting to see companies doing a bad job either by marketing basically not pipmin it and telling everybody about it or just doing an overall bad job. Neither should be done. Good thing in buisness is if people know two things 1)They Either Hear About Something through Media etc and are interested or want to get it or 2)They See it with their own eyes. As long as people hear or see a product you should be alright as you have put it into the world. If people buy it or not is anoather matter but it's the two things that should be realised and excuted. Shows Like Eerie Indiana by BMG & Various DIC Cartoons by DIC are very badly exucuted. If nobody knows or sees anything there not going to buy anything. Now if you do a bad job as i've heard with Columbia your going to create a bad track record and that's not good. If you don't care about your product you might as well not be doing it. Give it someone who will make it shine.

Anyways those are my two bits i've been wanting to say for awhile.

 

[LarryDavenport]

I usually side with musicians and song writers over copyright issues, but I think it's unfair that if an artist has agreed to, and been paid to have their music in a TV show or film, that they can hold up or prevent the release of the material on other formats. It sucks that we won't get WKRP because of Pink Floyd or The Billion Dollar Brain because of the Beatles, or the TAMI Show because of The Rolling Stones. I still think the artists and publishers should still get their cut, but there should be a fair way of determining what that cut is.

 

[Sarah S]

To say that the studios are treating tv similar to movies in terms of overral sales numbers is intriguing....does this mean that someday, somewhere, someone will buy the 1 millienth box of TMTMS:S1 and Fox will then say "Hey! There's enough interst in the show now to put out S2!"?

Or are the sales goals needed also figured in time frames, like "We didn't sell 500,000 in six months, so never again."?

 

[David Lambert]

Or are the sales goals needed also figured in time frames, like "We didn't sell 500,000 in six months, so never again."?

That's probably closer to the mark.