TWO USA Today articles on tv-dvd

[vashti1999]

Old TV shows never die...
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY




Consumers are snatching up old and new TV favorites on DVD as quickly as studios can release them.
TV shows on DVD are one of the fastest-growing trends in the home video business. "Owning these things has become very infectious," says Don Rosenberg, publisher of Video StoreMagazine, which hosts the second TV DVD Conference in Los Angeles Tuesday with The Hollywood Reporter and the Digital Entertainment Group.
Among indicators that the TV-on-DVD boom won't be subsiding anytime soon:

•The number of shows on DVD is rising. For the first nine months of 2004, 470 TV-on-DVD titles were released, up from 440 the same period last year, according to The DVD Release Report. And multidisc sets are up 77% over last year.

•Sales are surging. TV DVD sales will top $2 billion this year, up from $1.5 billion last year, estimates Video StoreMagazine. TV DVDs now represent about 10% of all DVD purchases.

•There's no end in sight. Over the next four years, Merrill Lynch predicts 30% annual growth for the genre. Consumer spending on TV DVD products will reach $3.9 billion in 2008, Wall Street analyst Jessica Reif Cohen says.

Driving the trend: profits. DVDs are fairly cheap to make, and studios already have paid for the production. By putting a TV series on DVD — often without any extras — studios can make $8-$30 for each season-long DVD set sold, Cohen says.

The first-season DVD of Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show is the best-selling individual TV DVD set, eclipsing the 2 million mark. Cohen estimates that Paramount breaks even after selling just 13,000. If subsequent seasons each sell about 3 million, Chappelle's DVDs could eventually generate $54 million for the studio.

Fox could take in $235 million for all 15 seasons of the top-selling DVDs of The Simpsons, she says.

The popularity of TV on DVD doesn't surprise Gord Lacey, creator of TVShowsonDVD.com. Viewers connect to TV shows differently from how they connect with movies, because they spend more time with the characters each week, he says. Even flop TV shows have fans.

"It's amazing how there are lesser-known shows that achieve this cult following," Lacey says. DVDs represent "a way the shows can live on."


TV shows rerun profitably on DVD
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY



That the Seinfeld gang of Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine would end up on DVD was only a matter of time, but Raj, Dwayne and Rerun?

The 28-year-old urban comedy that aired for three seasons on ABC, What's Happening!! wouldn't seem to be a title on the must-list to be turned into a series of DVDs. (Related story: Old TV shows never die...)

But Columbia TriStar knew that there were thousands of fans of the series who were interested in having it on DVD, based on responses to a poll taken on the Sony Pictures home video Web site.

"We had released Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons to pretty good success," says Benjamin Feingold, president of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. "I thought it was the next thing in our library that needed to come out."

Since its release in February, What's Happening!! — The Complete First Season DVD has sold about 100,000 copies — not as much as Sanford and Son or the millions that Seinfeld is expected to sell when it is released Nov. 23. But it was profitable enough that two weeks ago, the studio released the What's Happening!! second-season DVD set (three discs, $30).


"Television on DVD is probably the fastest-growing segment of the industry," says Ken Graffeo of Universal Studios Home Video. "There are a lot more releases, and retail is putting more emphasis on them."

Retailers from Best Buy to Wal-Mart are increasing the amount of shelf space dedicated to TV DVD product.

Several factors explain the expanding wave of TV DVDs:

•Fans are demanding titles, even of cult hits. Since the onset of DVD, studios have been besieged by die-hard fans who want to add collections of shows like the sci-fi series Sliders and Tales of the Unexpected and the satirical cop comedy Sledge Hammer! to their DVD stashes. "A lot of it has been requests coming from consumers," Graffeo says of the Sliders release. "What we have done is really line up what we have fielded out to be the most popular shows consumers have asked for."

•DVDs can help sell TV shows and movies. For the release of the '70s series Starsky & Hutch, Warner Home Video released the first season on DVD the same week in March that the feature film starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson opened. The TV series' second-season DVD coincided with the movie's DVD release.

"We don't know how many fans there were wanting Starsky & Hutch (the TV series on DVD), but all of a sudden you do a movie and millions of people see it and some say, 'That movie is great, I'll go get the DVD (of the series),' " says Don Rosenberg, publisher of Video Store Magazine.

Meanwhile, Universal released American Dreams — Season One Extended Edition on Sept. 7 just before the new season began "because that is when momentum is there," Graffeo says.

Fox is hoping to boost the audience for its Emmy-winning series Arrested Development by releasing a collection of the first season's episodes on Tuesday (three discs, $40) The new season premieres Nov. 7.

The approach has worked for Fox before. In September 2002, two weeks before the second-season premiere of 24, Fox released the first season on DVD. "When the show launched, its second-season ratings were up," Fox's Steven Feldstein says.

•There's a reason they call it classic TV. Beloved series such as Sanford and Son, Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days hold up well against today's programming.

And a time-tested TV series already has "a core audience," Feingold says. "In the case of Sanford and Son, it's a piece of cultural history. These days, there's a shortage of African-American programming in general."

Even obscure series are finding an audience on DVD. Take the '90s late-night comedy series Mr. Show.

The show's co-hosts, David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, were met with fans begging for the show on DVD while on a promotional tour for the book Mr. Show: What Happened?, written by Odenkirk's wife, Naomi.

"There is a fanatical Mr. Show fan base, and if we get the product in the right place and market it in the right way, they will buy it," says Cynthia Rhea, senior vice president of marketing for HBO Video.

But Rhea worries that TV DVDs might become "too much of a good thing. I fear there will be some process of natural selection."

As TV DVDs have proven successful, the inevitable hurdles have arisen. The arrival of Seinfeld on DVD —Seinfeld Seasons 1 & 2 and Season 3 (four discs each, $50) in stores Nov. 23 — was complicated when co-stars demanded compensation for their work on DVD extras. Finally, the stars were cut in on a portion of DVD sales.

While studios deal with inevitable complications, creators of current series are looking to the future. American Dreams executive producer Jonathan Prince re-edited the shows for DVD to include entire musical performances of acts such as Usher. Now in stores, the $90 DVD has extras that include original clips from Dick Clark's American Bandstand. "You actually have hard-core black-and-white footage that hasn't been seen," Prince says.

TV producers have to start considering both markets, Prince says. "We have to start shooting shows differently because DVDs will be an important part of the market."

• Contributing: Thomas K. Arnold

[barwars]

Originally posted by vashti1999
"We had released Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons to pretty good success," says Benjamin Feingold, president of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. "I thought it was the next thing in our library that needed to come out."

You heard it!!
The Jeffersons was a "pretty good success"
Hopefully the rumor of Season 3 in January is true.
This made my day.

[spunkygirl]

Thanks Vashti, very interesting, I was thinking the other day tvdvds wouldn't be dying down anytime soon.

why am I not surprised the Seinfeld gang wanted a cut I would say they're heads are getting to big to fit in the door. I can understand wanting something, but most do it cause they love the show, and love their fans

[slackermonkey]

Well, to be fair, they've had no success since "Seinfeld" ended.

How long before every TV show is on DVD?

[barwars]

Originally posted by Angela Micelli
why am I not surprised the Seinfeld gang wanted a cut I would say they're heads are getting to big to fit in the door. I can understand wanting something, but most do it cause they love the show, and love their fans

It's completely different when the cast of Freaks & Geeks does special features for their show, than when the Seinfeld cast does their special features.

One thing is Seinfeld will undoubtedly sell more than any other TVDVD of all time.
Columbia Tristar will be making millions off of what they did 15 years ago, why not get a cut for what they do today??


I completely understand why they want a cut of the profit.... why should some big wig corporate man be making money off of their work??






also.... I wouldnt call "" "not surprised"

[spunkygirl]

Originally posted by barwars
It's completely different when the cast of Freaks & Geeks does special features for their show, than when the Seinfeld cast does their special features.

One thing is Seinfeld will undoubtedly sell more than any other TVDVD of all time.
Columbia Tristar will be making millions off of what they did 15 years ago, why not get a cut for what they do today??


I completely understand why they want a cut of the profit.... why should some big wig corporate man be making money off of their work??






also.... I wouldnt call "" "not surprised"

Hmmm Frasier and Friends sell millions, do they get a cut? That's still no reason to be greedy.

[slackermonkey]

That's not the best example since (a) "Frasier" doesn't sell millions and (b) neither of those shows have cast commentary or involvement.

[spunkygirl]

Originally posted by slackermonkey
That's not the best example since (a) "Frasier" doesn't sell millions and (b) neither of those shows have cast commentary or involvement.

So Frasier hasn't sold millions, that's a def. surprise.

Still IMO they're being greedy, if that were the Friends cast doing it, people would be all over them saying how they are being greedy, but since it's Seinfeld, I guess it's okay, it's not like the cast don't make a profit from reruns(they do don't they?)

[slackermonkey]

Yeah, they get syndication profits, but so does the "Friends" cast. That's one of the perks of syndication. It doesn't have to do with one show or another.

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by Mike Snider
Since its release in February, What's Happening!! — The Complete First Season DVD has sold about 100,000 copies — not as much as Sanford and Son or the millions that Seinfeld is expected to sell when it is released Nov. 23. But it was profitable enough that two weeks ago, the studio released the What's Happening!! second-season DVD set (three discs, $30).

Season 1 probably did even better than the 100,000 mentioned in the article, seeing as it was available through TimeLife since the summer of 2003.

Originally posted by Mike Snider

For the release of the '70s series Starsky & Hutch, Warner Home Video released the first season on DVD the same week in March that the feature film starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson opened. The TV series' second-season DVD coincided with the movie's DVD release.

That's a mistake. Warner didn't release the first season dvd, Columbia Tristar did. They mixed up the movie studio with the tv-dvd studio.

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by barwars

I completely understand why they want a cut of the profit.... why should some big wig corporate man be making money off of their work??

Your unc isn't one of those corporate big-wigs, is he?

[TVFactFan]

Originally posted by barwars
You heard it!!
The Jeffersons was a "pretty good success"
Hopefully the rumor of Season 3 in January is true.
This made my day.

I'm confused that the Jeffersons was mentioned as being successful because the last release was 16 months ago.

[TVFactFan]

I'm surprised What's Happening haS more fas than the Jeffersons. I can't believe the show sold 100,000 copies. I guess the Jeffersons sold 35,000 copies-lol

[spunkygirl]

Originally posted by TVShow Analyzer
I'm confused that the Jeffersons was mentioned as being successful because the last release was 16 months ago.

Columbia Tri-Star that should say enough, they are the slowest of any co. when it comes to releases

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by TVShow Analyzer
I'm surprised What's Happening haS more fas than the Jeffersons. I can't believe the show sold 100,000 copies. I guess the Jeffersons sold 35,000 copies-lol

I believe it did that well. That's what made me think What's Happening was popular. I figured CT discontinued it as a TimeLife release because it was doing so well they decided to sell it in stores as a regular CT release. That's just my theory though, I don't know that as a fact.