TV DVDS: FANS STILL WANT THE WHOLE SHEBANG (NYT)
By Nancy Vialatte
Today’s New York Times notes that although DVD sales are down this year, TV sseries are faring better than other categories. Sales of complete seasons are registering actual growth with shows like “Friends,” “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” having each sold more than $300 million. While competition comes in many forms, like Internet downloads and streaming video, the appeal of the DVD and its ability to get time-pressed consumers hooked on shows are giving network execs renewed faith and prompting experimentation.
“The great thing about having a TV series is that new viewers discover the franchise every day, and they come through season one,” Sofia Chang, vice president of marketing at HBO Video, told the NYT. “Even though ‘The Sopranos’ is eight years old, you still have new people coming to the franchise.”
HBO is not the only network looking to DVD sales to refresh its shows’ popularity. “Jericho,” a dark serial on CBS about a town cut off from the rest of the world, was canceled last year in its first season and then revived, in part because of fan pressure. To build momentum for “Jericho,” CBS Television Distribution is pointedly releasing the first season on DVD in October.
John Miller of NBC Universal Television Group said that DVDs are not necessarily expected to generate profit for the network, but are considered valuable because of their power to turn casual viewers into loyal ones.
In one example of experimentation, NBC Universal made a deal with Starbucks in July to sell a DVD with highlights from “Saturday Night Live” as well as an episode of “30 Rock.” Tina Fey, the star of “30 Rock,” is a former “SNL” cast member, and the idea was that longtime fans might be tempted to sample the newer show for the first time.
Separately, NBC teamed with Wal-Mart to create a half-season pack of “Friday Night Lights” for $9.99, with promotions for new show, “Bionic Woman,” thrown in.
“They’re doing it as a break-even,” Miller said. With “Friday Night Lights,” NBC is even offering a money-back guarantee.
DVDs have also given life to many series beyond their small-screen run. Take, for example, “Babylon 5,” a science-fiction cult hit that ran from 1994 to 1998. In July, Warner Home Video began distributing “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales” on DVD, with fresh episodes of the defunct show.
“Babylon” creator J. Michael Straczynski said the DVD was a preferable option to trying to revive the series on TV. “The idea that such a venue could lead to considerable creative freedom was tremendously appealing,” he told the Times.
But even strong demand will not bring some shows to DVD, because of the high cost of securing music rights. Many shows were made before the DVD format was developed, and transferring the content to the newer format can require making fresh deals with the actors or musicians. The music rights on the “Happy Days” DVD, for instance, were reported to cost as much as $1 million.
For this reason, fans of the series “The Wonder Years,” which ran from 1988 to 1993, will most likely never be able to see the shows on DVD, and why fans of “WKRP in Cincinnati” sometimes express disappointment with the DVD version, which by necessity swapped out many of the original songs (substitutions that sometimes make the dialogue seem illogical).
Nostalgia drives a lot of DVD sales. Among the 300,000 registered users of the Web site www.tvshowsondvd.com, “The Wonder Years” is the most in-demand unreleased show, followed by “Batman,” “Daria” and “Third Watch.” At Amazon.com, “The Muppet Show” is a regular top seller, says the Times.
TVshowsondvd tracks the release dates for various shows, resulting in a schedule that is a pastiche of different eras. For example, tomorrow is the scheduled release date for volume two of the first season of “The Streets of San Francisco” (from the early 1970s), lost episodes from “Davey and Goliath” (a religious animated show that ran from 1960 to 1977) and the best of “The Cosby Show” (1984-92), among others.
“At some companies, they have great synergy between the TV division and the DVD division,” Gord Lacey, the founder of TVshowsondvd, told the NYT. “Sometimes they don’t talk. If you’re the guy doing the budget for a TV show and licensing the DVD rights to the music you want is going to add to your budget, why would you do that if you don’t get any benefit?”
But network executives have grown wise to the problem. “More and more, we are out obtaining DVD rights at the beginning of the licensing process in one all-encompassing rights package,” said Alexandra Patsavas, music supervisor on “Grey’s Anatomy.” “This ensures that the producer’s first choices for bands and songs are included on the DVDs and the audience sees the episodes intact with the original soundtrack.”
Patsavas, who has also worked on “The O.C.,” said that in the late 90s, bands were not that interested in working with television executives, for fear they would be perceived as less than cool. But “the music business has changed, and TV licensing is now seen as both an artistic and marketing opportunity for both new and established artists,” she said.
October marks the start of the fourth quarter, the heaviest promotion period on the DVD sales calendar. So far this year, sales of complete seasons of TV shows on DVD are up 6 percent from the comparable period last year, according to Nielsen VideoScan (although growth has slowed from a 17 percent rise in 2006 over 2005). The figures are noteworthy given that total DVD sales are down 7 percent this year, with the overall television segment down only 1 percent.
And yet, not all popular shows perform well on DVD. Procedural dramas like “C.S.I.” and “Law and Order” are not strong sellers, and reality shows do even worse.
Evan Shapiro, executive vice president and general manager at the Independent Film Channel, said that the poor performance of reality shows on DVD and other markets has helped spur demand for more scripted programming. Unlike at other networks, he said, at IFC, the television broadcast is viewed as a marketing platform for DVDs. For instance, IFC decided to reintroduce the former Fox sitcom “Greg the Bunny” on the basis of its strong DVD sales.
Despite the wide range of television viewing options provided by the likes of iTunes from Apple, executives say they are confident that the DVD format will endure; DVDs are portable and can be played on a variety of devices.
“As soon as I found out that ‘West Wing’ had been canceled, I went out and bought the whole collection,” Lee Westerfield, a media analyst at BMO Capital Markets, told the NYT.
Steve Feldstein, a senior vice president at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, says he thinks that sales of complete series on DVD have remained buoyant simply because there are a lot of good shows around. Pilot episodes that cost upward of $5 million are common, putting TV production values on par with movies.
Mr. Feldstein suggests that viewers were more likely to catch up on a single episode via iTunes or an Internet download, while still buying a collector’s boxed set. “Anyone who is a fan is going to want nice packaging with all the extras,” he said.
Related Links
What to Watch? How About a ‘Simpsons’ Episode From 1999? (NYT)
