What if a cancelled series continued on in exclusive DVD season sets ? (1 Viewer)

[Graham Greenlee]

I think the closest thing we'll see to DVD exclusive episodes are a cancelled series' unaired episodes. As it was pointed out, it just doesn't make sense to create a full-blown season of a full-budgeted cancelled series.

However, I think it's possible for a moderately budgeted series to create an additional four or six episodes to tie up loose ends. Tru Calling (which I've never watched) would be a good example. With only six episodes in the second season, they could bring the creative personnel back to produce DVD exclusive episodes (bringing the grand total to ten or twelve) in order to wrap up story arcs for the fans and to provide more content to sell more units.

I would venture to use the same idea should Arrested Development return for a third season and become cancelled mid-way. AD is cheap enough to produce in order to justify more sales.

So, while I don't think we'll see exclusive seasons or exclusive series, it might make good business sense to produce a few additional episodes after a series' cancellation in order to make the DVD collection more valuable. (And from a marketing standpoint, "Check out exclusive unaired episodes the network didn't want you to see!" would look great for driving sales.)

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

It isn't that much cheaper/easier to reassemble the cast of a show, put togehter a new prouduction crew, book or lease studio space, re-create sets, props, costumes, etc. for "four or five" episodes of a show than it is for a full season. When series has a budget of, say, 2 million an episode, that doesn't mean each one costs exactly that amount. Certain expenses are spread out over all the episodes. Shows routinely throw in a "cheap" episode featuring only one or two sets, no locations and no guest stars to that they can spend extra money on a "bigger" show later in the production year.

And we still have the problem of the professional stigma associated with "direct to video". Also there's the fact that most series don't have the kind of continuing story line that needs a wrap-up, so there's another reason this will never happen in 90% of the cases.

A wrap up TV movie that could eventually be released on DVD might make sense - if there's a network that wants to air such a movie. And if the studio and the network think there's a big enough potential audience to make it worthwhile. But given the fact that most of the shows people are asking for were cancelled for low ratings, many of them after shooting too few episodes to make it in syndication - meaning they can't build a bigger audience through years of reruns the way a Star Trek did - that doesn't seem terribly likely, either.

Speaking of reruns - that's one of the things that both increases the potential market for a DVD release of a series and serves as a kind of free advertising for the release. Since short-lived shows wouldn't have this advantage, that's another strike against them. (One reason for doing a DVD release just of the completed episodes of such shows is that they represent the only chance the studio has of making any money at all off them. But this has to be done either fairly soon after the show is cancelled, while it is still fresh in peoples' minds, or limited to shows that have the kind of significant afterlife that spawns books, fanzines and conventions.)

The studios are in business to make money and return value to their shareholders, not to gratify fans. They aren't going to release anything from which they can't see an obvious profit coming back. Can you imagine the reaction this pitch would get:

"Guys, I'd like to do a DVD release of Flop. Remember that show? Anybody? About the rabbi and the detective? Anyway, we cancelled it after six episodes aired because the ratings sucked, even though we had paid to shoot 13. I'd like to spend a nice piece of change cleaning up the video, designing menus, creating supplements and documentaries to produce a DVD set. Because I think people will gladly pay money to own a series that almost none of them wanted to watch when they could get it for free."

(Cue sound of studio execs laughing their asses off)



No studio is going to spend a couple of million bucks just to provide fans of a cancelled show with a sense of "closure". They've got to have a much better (read, "financial") reason. Where they do (Firefly, Farscape) they'll do something; where they don't, they won't.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Valerie G.]

I totally and completely agree. Everytime this type of subject is brought up, it just screams John Doe to me!!! It would be so totally and incredibly awesome for something like this to happen. At this point, I'd even be thrilled with a two hour movie, I just want to see the loose ends tied up.

Being a loyal John Doe fan, I can never resist replying to this type of thread, just to make sure this awesome show is mentioned. But, in this case, I'm not the first, but I still had to lend my support.

 

[Jon_Gu]

There is another possibility here. What if the studios actually sold commercial time for these new episodes. I know most TVonDVD purchasers wouldn't be happy after buying complete seasons without commercial interruption, but could this be a viable solution?

Let's face it, we already have advertising from the studios in the form of "Coming Soon" or "Also Available on DVD" featurettes. Could this create enough revenue to make straight releases to DVD a viable venture?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Sold it to whom? What advertiser is going to be stupid enough to pony up money to put out-of-date commercials on a disc that will be bought months in the future and which the target audience will easily be able to fast-forward through or even skip with a chapter stop? And to reach who? A fraction of the viewership of even a marginal TV series?

A sale requires two parties: A buyer and a seller. The studios can't just "sell" something because they feel like it. Somebody else has to want to buy it. (That's also why pestering the studios to bring back series or do wrap-up TV movies makes little sense. In most cases the studios would be happy to do so. But not without a network to foot the bill and air the finished product. That's the other thing missing from the business models offered here: With broadcast/cable production the studios are recouping at least part of their investment immediately, in the form of network licensing fees, and more later in the form of syndication sales. With DVD releases the studio spends all the money up front and then waits months or more waiting for the money to trickle in. This is not an attractive prospect for the studios.)

This is a business model that makes no sense. The problem is that people keep looking at this situation as fans, through the prism of desire, and not through the lens of business people who buy and sell products for business reasons.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jon_Gu]

Depending on the release date, automakers could benefit from a commercial about their new vehicles starting in August. That would be a 6 month-1 year run.

Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dominios, Pizza Hut, etc., make you think about food when you sit down to watch the disc. Think movie theater ads.

Any stable product used/seen in the show itself.

Commercials for computers could be generic with just the name being promoted, not a specific model.

Food products...how long has the little girl on the Welch's grape juice commercials been 5 years old? Mikey hated everything for several years worth of commercials. There are still commercials on the air that are 3 or 4 years old. Sure, they disappear for awhile, but they occasionally make a comeback.

Television/Home theater manufacturers/etc...talk about a captive audience.

What about products that aren't allowed to advertise on the air?

That's just a few off the top of my head.

I still think that if the additional shows on DVD bumped a 3 season run of a show to the equivalent of 4 seasons then a syndicated run might be possible.

 

[Yee-Ming]

In many respects, this is already done. As I understand it, in the US you often have a situation where a TV show gets cancelled due to low ratings, even if there are unaired eps remaining, in order (I guess) to "free up" the slot for something else which might gain a better market share (and earn more advetising dollars).

When the show is sold overseas (or into syndication) this is not necessarily relevant, and the station buying the show would be sold the whole lot as a package, and having bought that many eps, would air them. From personal experience, I have seen the so-called unaired eps of Firefly and DC on the local TV station, whilst US fans had either to wait for the DVDs (Firefly) or have never seen them at all (DC -- at least not in first run, dunno about syndication today; but do shows cancelled due to poor ratings even go into syndication?)

 

[David_Blackwell]

For a cancelled show to get new episodes, you would have to do a subscription pay-per-view method followed by a DVD Release. New shows like GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX, in Japan, have bene doing the pay-per-view method before DVD Release of the latest episodes. They air two episodes a month in Japan and then release those two episodes to DVD.

At the moment, I think it might be better to get cancelled shows and ones with unaired episodes to get DVD Releases at this moment. I have been waiting for SPHE to capitalize on Michael Hayes (since it stars David Caruso and they can advertise it as featuring one of the leads of CSI: MIAMI) or Paramount to release SOF (Soldier of Fortune in Season One and Special Ops Force in Season 2) by saying it's from the executive producer of CSI, Jerry Bruckheimer.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Speaking of anime, there is already a classification of direct to video work in Japan for animation refered to as OAVs or OVAs, depending on who you ask. Original Video Animation or Original Video Animation. These are shows generally with higher production values than a television series, but lower than a film. There are sold like 1-2 episodes to a disc. Maybe 40-60 minutes of content. It's a business model that works there, but I'm not sure how the economics would translate stateside with live action content. It'd be an interesting experiment for someone like Joss Whedon with a built in, die hard fanbase.

 

[Vincent Matis]

From today's IMDB news, not exactly direct2video, but close:

Who Cares About Ratings? It's DVD Sales That Count
In what may prove to be a new model for determining the fate of ratings-challenged television shows, Fox has decided to return the animated series Family Guy to its schedule based on its success at selling DVDs and merchandise and drawing license fees from cable. In an interview with today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times, DVD industry analyst Ralph Tribbey said that in the future, "shows eventually may be designed for their DVD potential. The broadcast network will almost act like a promotional platform for the entire package." The Times noted that Fox has ordered 35 new episodes of Family Guy although it has committed to airing only 13. Gary Newman, president of 20th Century Fox Television, told the newspaper, "Even if it doesn't work for the Fox network, the Cartoon Network wants them. By producing new episodes we will be able to keep this thing alive." All-new episodes are due to begin airing on May 1.

 

[john mcfadden]

EXACTLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!