Stephen Robinson writes…
Your post about My Living Doll on DVD reminds me of many other series that started a release on DVD and then ended halfway through.
I understand that it doesn't make economic sense to release further DVD sets if the originals didn't sell in sufficient numbers, but what I'm curious about is whether these numbers are actually a surprise to anyone. Does someone expect — for example — that the Alf cartoon from the 1980s will burn up the charts? I was a big fan (I often have to explain to people that I loathed the sitcom but loved the cartoon) and bought the first sets… and would have bought the rest if they'd been released (now, fortunately, they're all on Hulu). So, did people like me not buy the first sets or did the company hope that a larger audience would purchase them? Does the latter ever happen? Aren't DVD releases of decades-old shows primarily of interest to people who were fans from the start?
A final frustrating example: After much online petitioning, the Superboy TV series from the late '80s/early '90s was released on DVD…but starting with the first season. The first season that most fans don't like. The first season that didn't feature Gerard Christopher as the title character or Sherman Howard as Lex Luthor. I know some fans went ahead and bought the first season to ensure that sales would be enough for the seasons they actually wanted, but it never panned out.
(The Avengers TV series was released in order of fan interest — starting with the Emma Peel seasons — which made a lot of sense.)
At least in one case that I observed close-at-hand, the following situation transpired when Volume 1 of a planned-multiple-volume DVD series was the only release. There was this show. The company in question had reason to believe it would sell not blockbuster numbers but enough to show a tidy profit. They put it out in the Christmas rush and it was lost amidst dozens of other releases and it didn't sell. Everyone at the company blamed the timing of the release and also an almost total lack of promotion. But the head of the company — the man who'd decided on the release date and on the promotional budget — found it easier to blame the show insisting, "There's no market for that series." Others there thought there probably was but to try Volume 2 at this time would have required his admission that Volume 1 had been botched.
The market is not wholly predictable. Some odd things — shows I wouldn't have imagined would sell on DVD — have sold surprisingly well. Some that you'd expect would do great haven't. I believe the company that put out The Mary Tyler Moore Show was quite startled at the low numbers they got.
Often, the decision on what to put out has a lot to do with what kind of source material is available. Do they actually have all the episodes? Do they need extensive and expensive restoration work? In a lot of cases, there are problems with the music clearances and the fees that would have to be paid for certain shows to come out on DVD. That's what's keeping many old variety and talk shows from the shelves…what they'd have to pay for the songs.
I have occasionally railed here about a practice that rankles me and others. They bring out Volume 1 of Your Favorite Show on DVD, followed by Volume 2 and Volume 3 and so on. Since Your Favorite Show is your favorite show, you buy each one. Then at the end of the process, they bring out the super-deluxe Complete Set in a fancy slipcase at a bargain price and with materials available nowhere else. Maybe you can't even get the last year unless you buy the Complete Set, which will mean paying again for Volume 1, Volume 2, etc.
Not only is this unfair to the fans who supported the series on DVD, I think it's bad business. A fellow who works for one of the big companies that puts out old TV shows on DVD wrote me not long ago…
It's a Catch-22 for the fans who want the series. They really ought to wait until the entire series is released and then only buy the set. But if no one buys the early volumes, the company may stop putting them out and there will never be a set. That's especially the case if the episodes need to be digitally restored and remastered.
I agree with your implied point that we're slitting our own throats by setting up this kind of situation where the devout fans of the series have a reason to not buy them as they come out. They should feel that if they do buy each volume as it comes out, they will be rewarded in the end, not forced into buying things they already have. It's bad enough that after we release an entire series or even before it's all available, the first question asked is, "How long do we have to wait until we come out with a silver deluxe version of the same material with bonus features?"
I have this oft-quoted line about how the entire home video market is one giant conspiracy to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger. Well, I didn't mention it but I now have yet another copy (my seventh or eighth, I think) in my collection. For Christmas, I was given that fancy new Blu-ray set of all the Bond films. That meant I had enough Blu-ray discs here that I finally broke down and bought a Blu-ray player…for, curiously, less money than it would have cost me to buy that 007 set to play on it.
And you know what it means that I now have a Blu-ray player. It means that any day now, we'll have the announcement of yet another new format that will be so super-peachy, we'll all have to upgrade to it and repurchase all our favorite movies and shows in that format.
Amidst all of these re-re-re-releases, they're going to need new product. They're going to have to put something out on home video that's never been out before, above and beyond current shows and movies. And that's when they'll go back and put out the old shows that have been previously unavailable. Eventually, I think everything that can be issued will be. But it may take a while…