Lamar Smith Not Stopping At Copyright Law; Wants To Make Trademarks Worse, Too

Amazon To Sell DVDs Of TV Episodes, But Will Anyone Buy?

from the another-stab-at-it dept

Tue, Apr 25th 2006 8:44am — Joseph Weisenthal

Content distributors have launched several experiments looking for new ways to sell media. The latest announcement is from Amazon, as they plan to sell DVDs of TV shows very soon after they air. This would offer an alternative to iTunes' growing store of shows available for download, which aren't easily playable on a TV and are much lower quality. What may make the Amazon offering enticing, at least to publishers, is their ability to offer a one-day turnaround on DVD production. Typically, producing DVDs entails some risk, as publishers don't want to make a lot of extras. This is actually one of the excuses that movie studios give for the long release windows on DVDs, that they need to gauge how popular a movie is before they know how many DVDs to print, and how much to spend on marketing them. Of course, just because it may work out well for publishers, doesn't mean it will fly with consumers. The market for DVDs of TV shows is in box sets of complete seasons -- well-produced stuff that can go in someone's collection. There may not be much of a market for single-episode DVDs with fast production and few extras.

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21 Comments

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ZOMG CENSORED, 25 Apr 2006 @ 9:39am

I'd buy it
There's some shows I just do not have access to, and instead of paying a huge chunk of change for a box set, or waiting for a box set to rent a single disk, I can go and buy these shows. I'd rather not watch on a tiny screen when I have a huge ass tv at home (56 inch).
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Alara Moonrunner, 25 Apr 2006 @ 9:50am

This could work....
If there was enough diversity and low prices or a lot of extras to offset the $50+ that people would spend on said boxsets. If neither is done this could drive amazon down a little bit because then they would have all these DVDs and yet no one is buying them.
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rwwise, 25 Apr 2006 @ 9:58am

Cost is the selling point
If I missed a particular show and could get it shipped to me for a low price. Say less then 3.00 including shipping. I would probably go for it if I was really vested in the show. Amazon could make its money back on advertising at the beginning of the disc.

I mean come on how much would it cost to ship with a netflix like envelope 50 cents? And the cost of the CD 10 cents? Cost to modify the content 15 cents. Cost to produce the CD 5 cents (Remember the bulk and automation) Cost of the Content 1.00$ R&D cost over the first 10 million discs 50 cents. So amazon just made 70 cents without counting advertising. And the profits go up after they recoup the R&D costs.

Sounds good to me.
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nullsmack, 25 Apr 2006 @ 10:05am

I would almost do something like this and cancel cable tv.. I don't watch very many shows nor do I like to pay $55+/month for basic and "extended basic". That doesn't even include movie networks or most of the other cable networks.
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- Harry, 25 Apr 2006 @ 12:32pm
  
  Re:
  good point
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Jeremy, 25 Apr 2006 @ 10:31am

Like others have said
Cost will be the key. I don't have television in my house anymore prefering to just watch dvd's of my favourite movies or tv shows. This would allow me to get those same shows commercial free relatively soon after they air. I would be interested. Depending on the cost of course.
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SuckerPunch-tm, 25 Apr 2006 @ 10:53am

Here is what TV should do
Run the show on TV, like usual.
The very next day, they should make the previous nights episode available online.

For free you get: a streamed version, with unskippable commercials at the beginning and right before the end of the episode.

For a small fee, you get the episode streamed for free with NO commercials.

For a slightly larger fee, you get a downloadable episode, able to save it however you want. It will come with commercials but you may skip over them.

As extras, at the time the episode is created TV studios shouldalso be creating additional content to go along with the show. Instead of waiting for the episode airing to go back and THEN creating additional content (actor/director commentary, behind-the-scenes, etc...), why not make it part of the process of making a show?

Lee
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2006 @ 11:21am

Gotta remember that Amazon now has a digital locker which can be used to download content immediately.
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Sikretong Malufeet, 25 Apr 2006 @ 11:25am

DVDs
This could work to those kind of people who, because of work or for any other reasons miss their favorite TV Shows. Yes they can download thru bittorrent but they can only download the more popular ones (TV Shows). Alternatively, use PC TV then time and record it (from Cable signal, etc.), but the mentioned two ways of catching up with your favorite TV Shows also post some ups and downs, e.g. electricity bill (your PC will be set to record the show), "pixelated" or slightly dark/blurred video recorded, etc. So for a working person, this could be what they're looking for. Can't wait for my pirated copy, I kid I kid.
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Robert Johnson, 25 Apr 2006 @ 11:26am

How about rentals?
I remember trying to rent season one of 24 shortly after season two started airing, and having to visit three stores to find episodes in stock. Even low qulaity, no extras releases of popular shows should rent very well, and maybe is a way for those of us without Tivo to time shift our viewing.
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Alec, 25 Apr 2006 @ 11:43am

Fantastic!
I'd buy them, depending on price and quality. If they're better quality than iTunes (not difficult) and the price is similar to iTunes per episoide, I'm all in. Almost all of my time TV viewing time these days is keeping up with the 5 or 6 quality TV programs I enjoy, and I'm always behind. It's also important that these episodes are commercial-free. Amazon...always thinkin' (tm).
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2006 @ 12:00pm

Netflix by episode
Maybe they can make a netflix sort of thing....

Pay monthly, unlimited per month, limit out at a time

with the 1 ep DVD's
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- Bryan, 25 Apr 2006 @ 1:05pm
  
  Re: Netflix by episode
  I'm Director of Marketing at Peerflix, and I think our site would be a perfect fit for these DVDs. A rental market through Netflix is an option, but for people that would rather buy the DVD it's good to know that they wouldn't be stuck with them forever. My guess is that very few people would watch them more than once. Buy it on Amazon and trade it for something else on Peerflix when you're done.
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Tashi, 25 Apr 2006 @ 12:14pm

It's long overdue. This is the model many media corporations are afraid of.
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Jaime Martin, 25 Apr 2006 @ 12:19pm

Problem with doing a "netflix" deal...
is that netflix is currenlty suing blockbuster for copying their DVD rent-by-mail model. so unfortunately, it probalby won't happen that way, although it would be great! :)
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tom, 25 Apr 2006 @ 12:41pm

Good idea
since no matter how many TV shows are made available on iTunes, I can't buy any of them - as they're not for sale in my localised version of iTunes, and I'm not allowed to buy from the US iTunes store.

Good article, but the contention pre-supposes the reader is American.
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hop sing, 25 Apr 2006 @ 2:21pm

why not old shows?
Why don't they release videos of old TV shows, back to the 60's, 70's, 80's? The master tapes surely still exist? Probably political.
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- Darrel, 20 Dec 2006 @ 12:16am
  
  Re: why not old shows?
  I totally agree with your comments.Ive been wanting to purchase the Arsentio Hall Show with Will Smith as an guest 1991 and cannot purchase the dam thing.
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Robinson, 25 Apr 2006 @ 2:25pm

Foreign TV
I don't know how big of a market this could have, but I would definitely buy recordings from foreign TV. Lets say you want to see shows from Italian or Hungarian TV -- almost impossible now. This would be of course usable only to people speaking the language since there would be no subtitles. But since there are so many people in US from somewhere else, this type of thing should have some market.
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Louis, 26 Apr 2006 @ 2:40am

I`d buy it. I live in Germany. And everything here gets dubbed to German. Everything.
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Darrel, 20 Dec 2006 @ 12:14am

Hard to Find TV Episode
The records stores in the San Francisco area are selling old school TV Episode by records numbers.I personally dont understand why the Major networks dont sell the product to the consumers.There is an high demand for these TV Episode such as Late Night TV Johnny Carson Arsentio Hall Show ETC....
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