What Happened To the Classic Shows on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Phyll]

It seems like Sony, Fox and Warner Brothers have just shut the door on so many wonderful shows that are still in the vaults. I mean, why not finish The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Bob Newhart Show? Or how about MGM finishing Green Acres or Mr Ed? And how about Sony at least finishing the Flying Nun, All in the Family, the Jeffersons, and Maude. Or how about Warner Brothers putting out the Courtship of Eddie's Father(I haven't seen that one since it first aired in reruns. I have to give kudos to Paramount for at least trying. I have never seen Cannon before and I just love it. About the unremastered prints-this show looks fine on my tv-I have a 20 inch analog tv that is four years old. I am really hoping that Sony will finish Barney Miller and that Paramount will finish the Fugitive. But it seems like lately there have been no major announcements for older tv shows and the cable tv stations seem to no longer want to air these type of shows. I know I am rambling but I guess what I am trying to say is do you think that all the good old tv shows are out on dvd now or are the studios being too cautious about what they are releasing. There are so many shows I am just anxious to finish like MaryTyler Moore and All in the Family. Are the studios waiting to see what happens with Blu-Ray or something? What gives? I certainly have more money in my wallet right now. I am looking forward to a Lucille Ball Summer though. Be safe and be happy!

 

[MatthewA]

I guess, as everyone else apparently has, the studio is simply not satisfied with the sales of these shows.

Since you mentioned Mister Ed, I guess you'll be happy about this:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Mis...Season-1/12146

 

[Jefferson]

There have been other threads on this here....
I will repeat what I said there...I think that some of the oldies sets seem very high priced (MY THREE SONS and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER come to mind)...It seems that the audience is certainly out there....I'm in my early 40's, and I know all of the oldies by heart and have purchased them all.

I know that I LOVE LUCY, BEWITCHED, and THE WALTONS have all sold well, and continued to be released....but as you point out, most of the old shows are just stuck.

 

[NolanJ]

I think one reason the sales aren't as high as they would like, is because consumers don't want to invest in a couple seasons, only to be left without the entire series.

This angered me with Party of Five (although it isn't a "classic" show in terms of timeline).

Diff'rent Strokes and Welcome Back, Kotter are two more shows that I would get in complete set format, but not individual seasons.

 

[David Rain]

I don't think the general public avoids a TV on DVD release based on how many seasons have or have not been released. I've always found the very idea of that to be ridiculous. Why would you not want your favorite show on DVD just because they haven't put out all the seasons yet ? That's absurd. Collect the seasons that have come out and be glad to have them. The stupidest thing about not buying a show is that the more people who don't buy it the less likely any further seasons will come out. How come so many people don't get this ? You're just shooting yourself in the foot and contributing to the problem of low sales.

Ultimately, the answer to this tiresome question is ALWAYS the same. If you want to see future seasons of a show then BUY THE DAMN RELEASES WHEN THEY COME OUT. Do people really not get that at all ? If you aren't going to buy a show for whatever reason then that's your choice. But you don't get to complain when no further seasons come out. Because YOU are part of the problem.

Finally, could be please stop having multiple, endless threads covering this exact same topic ?

 

[Rob_Ray]

What I find interesting is that in the DVD era, these old shows have to prove themselves all over again or risk "cancellation" just as they did first run. Any series had to pull in decent ratings or risk cancellation each and every season. Some now classic series such as "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Cheers" had terrible ratings their first season and came close to being axed before season two.

The same thing is happening in their second lives. "Dick Van Dyke" and "Cheers" finally made it complete on DVD, but it looks as if "Green Acres" got cancelled after its third season. We hope Shout Factory can come in and pick up a "cancelled" series, just as back in the old days, occasionally another network would pick up "Father Knows Best," "Hazel" and "Get Smart."

The more things change the more they remain the same.

 

[Ethan Riley]

There really is a market for nostalgia--IF you know how to tap that market properly. Some dvd publishers are better at it than others. Sony is not. But maybe their lack of recent success had more to do with the fact that a couple years ago, they were putting out too MANY classic shows all at once--they pushed the marketplace too far, perhaps. Now they have to suffer--by putting out hardly ANY shows.

Formats change. People are getting into BluRay now, and holding off on standard-def tv shows, thinking that they'll eventually be released on BR. Also, people are just downloading or netflixing everything--they're not buying to own and collect any more.

What I think should happen is that the industry needs to forget about season-by-season releases of the oldies. Season sets probably work well for tv shows that are still on the air...but if you're talking about an old series that ran for 5-20 years, then that's a LOT of effin' boxed sets to buy over an unspecified period of time. My hat is off to those who choose to collect, for example, Gunsmoke--I love you, but it's gonna take FOREVER to get them all.

So...the industry needs to get over these dumb season sets and just move on Complete Series sets. Those seem to sell well during the holiday season anyway. They make great gifts, the show gets collected INSTANTLY and without the anxiety of 'will I ever get all the seasons?'

I'm sick of season sets, personally. I mean, come on--I wanted Dynasty on dvd very badly, and I had to wait years for season two...and then they started breaking it into half-seasons. At their current rate of release, Dynasty will take about 11 years to dribble out on dvd...the show was only on for NINE years. Same problem with Melrose Place. And the Love Boat. And the list goes on and on. It's very uncomfortable to buy these things, not knowing if there'll ever be another release. The dvds are great, but if I buy ONE tv season release, that means I want THE...WHOLE...SHOW, not just one or two seasons...! I think most on this board feel the same way.

So: Paramount, Warners, Sony, Fox and the rest--think about Complete Series sets more often!

 

[MatthewA]

I'm tired of these threads, too. But I'm more tired of there being a reason they exist.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

Yet everyone keeps forgetting, the economy has threatened the current business models of many of these studios and this has limited their output of releases.

Sony is even moving toward spinning off their movie studio as that they lost a lot of money in this last quarter. Their profits were down in every market.

 

[MatthewA]

I also heard rumors about a Paramount being sold, even merged with Columbia. We would see the torch lady on top of a mountain.

But these are just rumors being put forward by a single stockholder.

 

[bmasters9]

I'd also like for them to take up arms and release the last of "Hart to Hart," as I'm very disappointed that Sony quit.

 

[Phyll]

So maybe what is happening with the classic shows is what is happening in the dvd market in general and the overall economy. Now it does make sense that Sony and Paramount would merge but I do believe that would mean less output than what Paramount is doing now. And I was hoping Hawaii Five-o would make it across the finish line. Oh well. I guess we will just wait and see what happens. And I don't see how Paramount would ever finish Gunsmoke. I think they should release it in four box sets and two would be the Chester Years and the other two would be the Festus Years. I think the studios should just release the complete sets every time. I hate to have one and dones in my collection.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

I don't think many of the classic shows will ever make it to Blu-Ray, so DVD is perfectly fine for them.

 

[Neil Brock]

Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a market for many shows and for certain genres. Sitcoms, science fiction and westerns do the best. Crime dramas are hit or miss. But other dramas, like lawyer shows (except for Perry Mason), doctor shows, etc., there doesn't seem to be an interest in putting them out. As someone who likes dramas way more than sitcoms, I'm not happy about this but I do understand it. These things are not going to sell, at least not in sufficient quantities for them to be profitable.

 

[Phyll]

I would love to see more old crime dramas on dvd but I do believe there is no interest. I do understand that these companies need to turn a profit. I would love to see Marcus Welby, Barnaby Jones, more Mannix, Medical Center and Trapper John. But I guess no such luck. Sigh. Maybe some day we will be able to order the shows from our cable company and watch them that way. Because the cable system in my area is for the birds if you like classic dramas or comedies. They show a lot of infomercials, commercials and religious programs. And newer shows. I haven't gotten into ER or Grey's Anatomy. But I do like CSI and Law and Order. I don't care much for the modern comedies.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Exactly, and for most of the same reasons. And just as we "risk" having our time wasted if we start watching a show (because it may get cancelled after a short run) so we "risk" having a show orphaned on DVD.

But I don't hear too many people saying that the networks and studios should only air shows that they've agreed in advance to run for at least five years, and that are paid for up front and cannot be cancelled even if their ratings suck. Does anybody think that would be a rational way to run a network? Let's say a modest network show has an average per episode budget of $4 million. At 22 episodes per year that's $88 million a season and $440 million for a 5 year run. Would it make sense for ABC to spend $440 million this year for a show that they're stuck with for five years whose ratings may earn them only $3 million per episode in 5 months?

So why should a studio do the equivalent for a TV on DVD release? Why would they pay all the upfront costs (which can also run to millions of dollars per TV season) for 5 or 7 or 10 seasons of a show before seeing the first dime of profit or the first sales number from the first season? Don't forget, one of the advantages of the season-by-season approach is that it creates cash-flow, you can pay your production costs on subsequent seasons out of the money you're earning on the early ones. Pay for everything up front and you don't turn a profit until possibly years in the future. (Because most people are still going to collect one season of your show at a time, no matter how quickly you release it, because most of them can't afford to drop a couple of hundred dollars on a "full series set")

The only show that ever pulled off anything resembling this in the U.S. market was Star Trek in its various incarnations. And even then Paramount released each series one season at a time, about once each month. It is true that they basically did all the mastering up front, which is how they were able to meet that release schedule, but they recouped the costs very quickly by getting each series out in about six months (as opposed to the two plus years it took Warner Bros. to release Babylon 5.) But Trek has always been an exception in American television. It was one of the very few non-kids' shows that managed a complete series release in a retail VHS version (the others were Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits - even The X-Files only managed some "Best of" collections.) At a time when the rule was "TV doesn't sell on home video", Trek did. The Trek franchise is like a license to print money, and Trek fans will buy anything with a Starfleet "swoosh" on it. Paramount knew going in that they were going to make their money back. They weren't taking any risk at all.

And they're the only ones in the history of TV-on-DVD who have been in that position. Everybody else has to be prudent, and take a sensible and responsible approach to relasing TV material. Which does not including paying 90% of the cost of releasing a full season before you have any idea how it will sell. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Phyll]

Yes, I agree Joseph with everything you say, however sometimes in life you have to take chances in order to succeed. I think the big studios are being too cautious right now. It seems like they have all folded their tents and have gone home. And the dvd market still needs some older shows out there to give it that margin of success it needs. And there are many good ones to choose from that haven't all been released yet. I mean, every time it looks like the Mary Tyler Moore Show will be released it moves up the Amazon sales charts. Again, Joseph I couldn't agree with you more. I just want to have some hope that some of the tv shows that have been started will eventually be finished. Maybe some older tv shows will fall into another studios domain and they will release them. Like Mary, but it just doesn't look Fox is going to come through for us Mary fans who have been very patient. Sigh.

 

[sestamuch]

True, and let's see if they can keep up and what they're going to do to fight it.

 

[Jason_V]

Not quite an oldie, but possibly a good sign for things to come: Ally McBeal S1 and Complete Series due on the same day.

 

[cajunhillbilly]

I never did watch Ally McBeal when it was on. For the fans of the show, I am glad that a region 1 set is coming out. It has been available in region 2 for a few years.