Okay, that’s probably the most confusing subject title this board has ever seen, and I probably screwed up the math formula. I’ll try to give a more prosey explanation. What the hell is the deal with all these TV Series being released within a week before the next season premieres? I’m looking at the long term list of upcoming DVDs, and a bunch of them are slated to come out in late September or early October, just as the next season is starting, and The Closer Season 1 comes out the same day that season 2 premieres, and FX is notorious for doing the exact same thing with their shows.
Now, I assume that the production companies who make these shows and eventually release them to DVD want people to watch their shows. And there are many many people who miss a show in the first season and by the time the buzz starts up that it’s good, it’s already too far into the season to catch up (which is exactly what happened to me with 24, Nip/Tuck and Lost). So then your alternative is to either download the episodes, which gives the networks no chance of you even seeing one of their commercials (which is what I did for 2 of the 3 shows above), or waiting for the DVD. But if you go with the latter option (which I did with Nip/Tuck, watching the entire season over a weekend and tivoing the season 2 premiere just incase I ended up liking season 1), then the cycle starts all over again since while the viewer is enjoying season 1, they are missing the new season - and not all viewers want to have 20+ episode marathons in a day or two just to be ready. Not to mention that now the networks are missing them in their ratings for the second year in a row.
Now, why can’t/don’t they release these DVDs in the summer, like in mid June or early July, so that viewers who are hungry for new programming while stuck with crappy summer programming can have something fresh to watch, and be ready for the fall premieres?
I hate that! That happened to me with Veronica Mars! The first season DVD came out either right before or right after season 2 started, so that even when I finished the set at a pretty brisk pace I couldn’t just jump right into the show on TV (Since I refuse to watch a show like that out of order). Now here I am waiting for the season 2 set and hoping it gives me time to prepare for the new season premeire on TV…
Considering that the default window used to be closer to a year, if not more, (IE, season 1 would come out on DVD maybe, if the fans were lucky, the summer after season 2 had FINISHED,) I think that shorter windows might come in time, or not. A few reasons they might not:
Technical and marketing difficulties. It takes time to produce and distribute that many boxed sets, and if it’s a really popular, high-buzz show, the studio might not want too many people to be working on a box set that includes the season finale before it airs, in case someone has a chance to watch the episode and leak secrets on the net. Also, work cannot begin on the box set until production on the entire season is done, I suspect.
If the window was that short consistently, the studios would probably be afraid that a lot of people wouldn’t even watch their show and just think, “ehh, I’ll catch the DVDs over the summer.”
Both of these are just guesses.
Apologizes if I’ve inappropriately gone into zombie mode here, but this practice is STILL going on, and I still don’t get WTF is happening. This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly is FULL of ads for last seasons shows hitting shelves next week.
Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory comes out on 9/15, and yet season 3 starts on 9/14. This is one show I’ve been trying to push onto everyone I know, and some of them actually prefer to buy DVDs for their collection rather than watch online, which means that they can’t enjoy season 3 because they haven’t even been able to watch season 2 yet.
WAG, but maybe the networks deliberately do this in order to FORCE people to buy every single season rather than catch up and then stay with the show…what matters more to the production companies - ad revenue (which has been really going down the tanks due to all the methods of time lapsing) or DVD sales?
This is just a WAG, but it seems like they used to (I haven’t watched much summer TV in the last couple of years) put the previous seasons reruns into heavier rotation during the summer, it might make sense to some executive to hold off on the DVD, while they are reshowing the episodes that are on those DVDs.
I believe they have the DVD release so close to the season premiere is to remind/alert people that a new season is starting. Most of the newer box sets I see have a little ad on the front for “Catch the New Season” with the premiere date.
That makes absolutely no sense. Why would someone want to buy the DVD of old episodes if there are NEW episodes to watch on TV right now instead?
BTW, props to 24, which over the last couple of years has actually released seasonal DVD the next DAY after the season ends. I suppose that’s one show where it’s pretty hard to rerun episodes. Generally it seems like the networks have dropped this rerun thing altogether though.
New seasons start in the fall. People tend to do their Christmas shopping in the fall. Maybe the studios figure if they release the DVD sets in the summer they’ll miss out on all those Christmas gift sales.
Video gamers often complain about a lack of big releases in the summer, then a ton of them coming out in the fall. That’s probably related.