Way For Studios To Save Money on TV Releases. (1 Viewer)

[Dave H]

Dave,

I agree about those other factors you mentioned.

I mean compare this with Sanford and Son (which I've heard has sold pretty well). For example, at Best Buy right now Sanford sells for $22.99 for 13 episodes ($1.77 per show). Mary sells 24 episodes for around $39.99 or so ($1.67 per show); fairly close in terms of the number of episodes you get for the money or "bang for the buck."

However, I wonder if a lot of people still look at the bottom line cost and say to the effect, "Well, I would pay $20.00 for a TV series, but $40.00? No way." I say this because I hear a lot of people (not from this forum) that won't buy a DVD beause of the price. If the price is low enough, they will buy. It's all about how much they like a particular title. They may like a show or title to a certain degree; if the price is good, they buy - if just a bit too high, they pass. In other words, they are not "die-hard" fans who will buy the dvd at virtually any price. Maybe Fox needs to reach more "moderates" or people in the middle when it comes to buying these. Just a thought.

Maybe if there was a way to create smaller sets (even though it seems awkward to separate a single season to two sets) for around $20.00 would help sales.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

If the price is low enough, they will buy.

This is true, lower prices can generate more sales. But there is a point of diminishing returns. If the price falls so low that the series isn't profitable even with the increased sales, the studio loses money. The problem right now is that this whole "TV on DVD" thing is so new that the data probably aren't there for the studios to accurately gauge how much interest there really is in a given show - much less at a particular price point. So they have to base the price on their best guess of how many copies a given series will sell. And these guesses will, in the nature of things, be conservative.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Nowadays 90% of shows are clearing their music for DVD as part of the package

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Nowadays 90% of shows are clearing their music for DVD as part of the package

True, but this obviously wasn't the case as recently as a few years ago, when the conventional wisdom was still that "TV shows don't sell on home video". Even contracts that did cover home video were sometimes so specific (mentioning "VHS" "videotape" or "laserdisc") that they don't cover a format like DVD which didn't exist when they were written. So the vast majority of the television series produced in the past 50 years or so have not already covered some of this stuff by contract. And even the ones that have must factor in the royatlies and residuals that will have to be paid when setting their production budgets and their list price for the DVDs.

Regards,

Joe

 

[David Lambert]

The problem right now is that this whole "TV on DVD" thing is so new that the data probably aren't there for the studios to accurately gauge how much interest there really is in a given show

Funny, that was one of the goals Gord Lacey had when he created TVShowsOnDVD.com to help studios gauge interest in DVD releases of all the various TV shows!