Universal - Any chance of Northern Exposure? (1 Viewer)

[Tommy*M]

Hello, I am new to the forum, and I apologize if this has already been posted/requested already, but I was curious to know if there are any plans to release Northern Exposure on DVD? With all of the television series making their way to DVD recently, I was hoping that Northern Exposure would not be far behind due to it's popularity and the size of the fan base it still appears to have. I got my hopes up several months back when I found that Northern Exposure Series 1 was released as a 2-disc region 2 set in the United Kingdom, assuming that a U.S. release wasn't far behind. However, now those region 2 discs appear to be almost extinct except for an occasional appearance on Ebay, and I have not been able to find any other information regarding any future releases in the U.S. or other regions. Anyway, this seemed to be the best place to seek out answers. Any help or information from anybody would be appreciated. Also, if anybody else on the boards would be interested in a Northern Exposure release, please leave a message so I know I'm not the only person anticipating the addition of Northern Exposure to DVD. Thanks.

 

[Andy_MT]

you're not the only person, but i fear we might have a long, long wait.
doesn't this show come under the ownership of universal ? who incidently haven't released any tv product yet, even though other studios, their competitors, have started doing so. i don't blame them though, who wants all that pesky money

 

[Megan_A_D]

What about the Xena release? (series finale I think) But perhaps you're like me who don't consider single volume releases valid "tv product".

My personal hope for Universal is that their first TV on DVD outing (season box sets) will be for Xena...

But Northern Exposure is also on my list of shows I'd buy should Universal release it.

but back to Xena... I'm not sure of the lineage exactly but Xena was made by Universal's MCA part but I think perhaps the disc was put out by ... USA Home Entertainment (according to Amazon)... weren't those folks just bought by someone else?

 

[Andy_MT]

you're right, i think. xena falls somewhere around universal (amazon lists it as universal music & vi). but still, given all their great catalog product, the universal cupboard's still pretty bear. tv releases must be lucrative, otherwise why would the other studios be into it ? unless they don't like all that pesky money either
northern exposure series 1 in region 2 was a very nice release, surprisingly. kind of whet my appetite. then it got pulled. with no sign of season 2.
i wish studios would license some of their tv product out to third parties (image, anchor bay etc). it might speed up the process.

 

[Megan_A_D]

actually I'm glad they don't... for now...

since Image is too cheap to caption anything they put out and Anchor Bay doesn't maintain a policy of captioning everything they put out...

I would be incensed to find out that some of my much hoped for shows were released with out captioning...

While I've not really seen the Twilight Zone, I would have very likely bought the discs had they not been put out by "we don't like deaf people" Image.

Though looks like the Dry Grass folks are doing things right with My So-Called Life which is Region 0 and subtitled.

 

[Andy_MT]

since Image is too cheap to caption anything they put out and Anchor Bay doesn't maintain a policy of captioning everything they put out...

i guess we've all got our faults
and knowing Images' quality history, we'd end up with something our VHS copies could stand proud against. maybe that wasn't such a great idea.
with the current volume of TV shows to be released, i just can't see how the studios can keep up. paramount are doing an admirable job with Star Trek NG, releasing all seasons in a year i think, but what about the rest of their tv product (cheers, fraiser [soon in R2 though] etc) ? and that's just one studio. hence maybe the need for third parties.
even with NEs' popularity, only a few episodes made it onto VHS. i don't think it stands much of a chance on DVD :frowning:

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

A couple of retailers inadvertantly posted Universal's Law & Order: The Complete First Season today, a week before the official press release and cover art are due. Word is that there is a lot more TV product coming, from Universal and from other studios, now that everybody can see the kind of sales that X-Files, Friends, TNG and other series are racking up on DVD. I'm sure Universal is also aware of the demand for Northern Exposure and that's its release at some point is all-but inevitable.
DVD is probably even more suited to "quirky" shows like N.E. than to more mainstream hits. Off-beat shows, shows cancelled after fewer than four seasons, and "mythology" or "arc" series which have to be watched in order, don't do as well in syndication as your typical TV show. They "burn out" quickly in a given timeslot, or syndicators won't touch them at all because they don't have enough episodes. (100 is the usual minimum.) But fans of such shows tend to be incredibly dedicated to them. A show that draws only 800,000 viewers in reruns might be considered marginal by a cable network. But a boxed set that sells 800,000 copies is a monster hit on DVD. And with the cult shows a far higher percentage of fans will probably buy them on disc.
Mainstream shows like M*A*S*H, which are available for "free" on TV several times a day in some markets, will probably be bought by a far smaller proportion of their fans than those beloved "cult" shows. (Although the M*A*S*H fan base is so huge it might well sell more in absolute numbers.)
I expect the "TV shows on DVD" trend to continue to snowball. DVD is the perfect format for this kind of thing, because the sets can be released at an attractive price point and have managable storage requirements. The old conventional wisdom that "TV shows don't sell on home video" is slowly being replaced by the realization that "TV shows didn't sell on VHS or LD because VHS sucked, and both LD and VHS were too expensive and too space-intensive for most people to want to collect whole TV shows on them."

Regards,
Joe

 

[Andy_MT]

i hope you're right. thanks Joseph!

 

[Megan_A_D]

My head's reeling from all the announcements...

While I won't get my wish that Xena comes first, L&O's another one of the shows I wanted... will be cool to get to see the early seasons since I started watching right when Jill Hennessey joined the show. I know that cause I remember her character telling off the DA that he wasn't gonna sleep with her like he did with his last 3 ADAs

I would also take heart that Northern Exposure will be released because hey Joseph's theories are already being proven true by Buena Vista (major studio) picking a CANCELLED show as one of their 3 choices to premiere their TV on DVD line...

Just FYI, L&O ranks 96th (99 votes) to NE's 53rd (133 votes) on tvshowsondvd.com

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Here's another vote for Northern Exposure. There are few TV shows I would pay to own, and this one is at the top of the list. I just hope some of the cast participates in extras.

Universal is also apparently readying Battlestar Galactica after doing new HD masters.