mafisto said:
Question about television economics for those who know (or think they do): could a show be financed completely by DVD and VHS sales? I'm curious, because the consensus is that all of JW's shows do okay on television but absolutely kill on the DVD format. Couldn't he continue Firefly by creating new episodes for DVD? Or is that simply not possible, aside from any contractual obligations?
I'm not sure.
This is sort of how the model currently works: networks pay the studios to produce shows. The networks get their money from advertising. Advertisers buy advertising slots depending on the ratings the shows pull in: networks can demand more money from a higher rated show, since the ads will reach a larger audience, and thus advertisers will pay more, while low rated show won't draw as many advertisers, since the advertisers want to advertise to as many people as possible. Thus sci-fi often gets screwed on network tv, because it tends to get low ratings, and is expensive to produce (though computer-generated effects have brought some of the costs down). Also network execs have their favorite programs, and they tend to be more generous with though programs, while programs they don't like or don't understand tent to get the axe more quickly. This accounts for some of the success of
Quantum Leap, for I've read that the NBC execs liked the show. Given that it generally took place in America of the 60's and 70's, and was light on the technobabble, it wasn't a show that didn't really confuse the hell out of them.
Now the thing is, how exactly are you going to pay for a show on DVD? Producing enough episodes to fill a DVD is going to cost money, you got to pay the actors, the writers, and the production staff, anmd there's production costs involved. Presumably, you got to depend on DVD sales to fund it. But if you got a new show no one's heard about, sale at first will be slow. If you've got a great show, it may spread by word of mouth, but just starting it out will be a fairly risky proposition. Small studios might not be able to afford the cost, and a larger studio is generally going to follow conventional wisdom and continue to produce for networks and cable, because they know the format works.
However, with the proliferation of VCRS, DVD players, video game consoles, and the Internet, television ratings have taken a massive nosedive. This is one reason the networks are falling over themselves to produce those loathesome "reality" shows. They're cheap, and they manage to pull decent ratings. However, ratings are becoming even harder to measure with stuff like Tivos. When people can simple record live tv, watch it whenever they want and skip commercials, it makes the old ratings system a little obsolete. I've read that some companies are considering going back to doing thing like they were done in the early days of television and plugging products on the show itself, since people aren't watching the commercials (though this wouldn't work very well with sci-fi or period shows). Perhaps someone might actually explore the idea of direct-to-DVD television as the system continues to break down. Who knows? With television, computers and telecommunications merging, who can say what things will be 20-30 years from now?
