Gizmo

It's hard to judge because the numbers will keep dropping because why buy it on Blu when you can stream it usually around the same time. Sure, it's not Blu-ray quality, but history has clearly shown consumers are fine with DVD Quality.

You can pretty much see where Streaming started to eat away at disc sales. I know I don't buy TV on Blu anymore. There is no point. I don't buy Blu pretty much at all except 5-6 times a year. I'm done with discs, collecting etc. Consumers and retailers seem to share my feelings.

morriscroy

So in effect, two times (or one and a half times) the number of first week units moved at the amazon/BestBuy/Target discounted MSRP prices, has to at least cover the initial expenses that went into producing a particular tv season set (ie. disc mastering/manufacturing, marketing, etc ...).

Otherwise one is just throwing money into a black hole (or toilet).

morriscroy

I wouldn't be surprised if the two markets are largely uncorrelated in general. (ie. They mind as well be apples and oranges to one another).

I haven't looked closely yet. But I wonder whether there's any small pockets where there is significant correlation. The first place to look would perhaps be in sci-fi/fantasy tv shows which have been released on both dvd and bluray.

Alan Smithee

Well, in that case they shouldn't drop the prices later. If I REALLY want it I'll still buy it eventually at the higher price, but of course I'm more likely to buy something older if the price has just dropped. Seems like if that didn't work for the studios, they wouldn't do that.

As for Netflix, again nothing is going to stay on there FOREVER. If you watch something on Netflix for the first time, then decide you want to see it again in better quality or just have it in your collection after Netflix takes it off, THEN you'll buy the Blu-Ray. Netflix has both helped and hurt sales in my opinion, as I've bought discs of stuff I've seen on there that I've liked a lot, but on the other hand ended up watching stuff they've put on that I had been thinking of buying, but after watching on Netflix decided not to.

morriscroy

Here's the ratio of dvd:bluray units sold in the first week (and a few second and third weeks), of various tv season sets released on dvd and bluray over the last several months, where data is available.

Supernatural season 9 - 3.8887
Once Upon A Time season 3 - 3.00087

American Horror Story Coven - 2.6632
Homeland season 3 - 2.54166
Person of Interest season 3 - 2.4366

Sleepy Hollow season 1 - 1.88899
Boardwalk Empire season 4 - 1.793
24 Live Another Day - 1.593
Agents of SHIELD season 1 - 1.2389
Vikings season 2 - 1.124968

Arrow season 2 - 0.92655

Big Bang Theory season 7
week 1 - 2.012
week 2 - 3.519
week 3 - 4.989

Sons of Anarchy season 6
week 1 - 3.5439
week 2 - 5.013
week 3 - 3.365

The Walking Dead season 4
week 1 - 1.6432
week 2 - 2.0343
week 3 - 2.571


With this small amount of data, any conclusions are flimsy at best.

In general for many shows, the dvd:bluray ratio is around 2:1 or worse.

The Marvel/DC superhero shows appear to be close around parity 1:1 (or better).

(I don't have any explanation for 24 or Vikings).

morriscroy

Here's the ratio of dvd:bluray units sold for Games of Thrones season 3, over the first four weeks.

week 1 - 0.631775
week 2 - 0.9216
week 3 - 1.1257
week 4 - 1.201

majorjoe23

If they just let them sit at the high price, Amazon/Best Buy/Target would just send them back. It's like how 2014 cars were full price, but now they're blowing them out. If they let them sit, none would sell.

morriscroy

As a general rule that a PHB/Dogbert type can understand, a hypothetical bluray version of a non-scifi/non-fantasy non-geeky tv show, will probably sell much worse than 25% of the dvd numbers.

(The bluray version of Supernatural season 9 is only moving around 25% of the dvd version's units, in its first week of release).

Gizmo

Was SPN Season 9 one of the releases which included DVDs with the BD set? Warner seems to keep flip-flopping them.

morriscroy

No.

Supernatural has not been released (yet) as a bluray/dvd/digital combo pack. It's been largely bluray-only or bluray/digital.

The Warner tv on bluray sets which were recently released as bluray/dvd/digital combo packs is stuff like:

- The Originals
- The Vampire Diaries
- The Big Bang Theory
- The Following
- Person of Interest
- Shameless
- Revolution
- Arrow

Though after awhile (ie. 5+ months later after release), Warner has re-released some of these titles as bluray-only sets. Most likely after the first batch of combo sets have all been sold.

morriscroy

From the first week data culled so far, it appears some of these Warner tv shows released as bluiray/dvd/digital combo packs are titles which are around the "grey zone" of 5000 to 10,000 units moving in their first weeks.

(With the exception of Arrow and The Big Bang Theory).

In the case of Person of Interest having over 10k+ first week units move for seasons 1 and 3, I wouldn't be surprised if the bluray/dvd/digital combo pack format is being used for the sole reason that the show might still have a "procedural" reputation. The fear that if Person of Interest is released as bluray-only, the first week units moved might fall off a cliff into the 5000-7500 range or lower. (A similar argument might also apply to the later seasons of The Vampire Diaries). Basically the combo pack acting like "insurance", in a vague sense.

I don't have any explanation for why Arrow and The Big Bang Theory are still being released as bluray/dvd/digital combo packs, even with 20k+ first week units moving.

morriscroy

Don't count the chickens yet.

Unfortunately the data for the bluray version of Helix indicates that it did not make it into the top-20 in its first week of release. So this means anywhere from 1 to 10,154 bluray units of Helix season 1 moved in its first week of release. The exact number is presently unknown.

There isn't much first week data on other Sony tv on bluray releases, outside of Breaking Bad and Justified. The only one I can find is House of Cards.

House of Cards

season 2 - 5642 units

http://www.the-numbers.com/home-mark...art/2014/06/22

season 1 - below 10,973 units (released on June 11, 2013)

http://www.the-numbers.com/home-mark...art/2013/06/16


Masters of Sex

season 1 - below 6,819 units (released on June 24, 2014)

http://www.the-numbers.com/home-mark...art/2014/06/29



Hard to say what Sony will do with tv on bluray titles with first week numbers moving in the "grey zone" of 5000-10,000 units.

morriscroy

For that matter outside of the big tv on bluray hits, many other current tv on bluray titles from other companies like Paramount, Lionsgate, Eone, Anchor Bay, etc ..., also seem to fall into the "grey zone" of 5000-10,000 units in their respective first weeks of release. (Excluding catalog stuff like Star Trek, etc ...)

morriscroy

I can see possibly why network tv shows are too depressing of a thought to contemplate on bluray, if the movie company PHB/Dogbert types believe such network fodder will most likely only sell less than 5000 bluray copies.

morriscroy

Hmmm .... Universal going "wobbly" on sci-fi tv on bluray?

Apparently there's no mention of a possible season 1 bluray for "Z Nation". Only dvd so far.

http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Z-Nation-Season-1/20543
http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Season-.../dp/B00QIKO250

(Couldn't find an amazon placeholder for a hypothetical bluray version).

morriscroy

Fargo season 1 moved 9,986 units on its first week of release.

http://www.the-numbers.com/home-mark...art/2014/10/19

morriscroy

It remains to be seen whether Fox considers 9,986 units moved is acceptable, or grounds for discontinuing the bluray version.

LorenzoL

As much as I would prefer having them on Blu-ray, those sales numbers are pathetic.

bruceames

The Numbers website doesn't know how many units are selling. They are making them up. Usually they only need to guess the sales of one title (usually the top seller), then fill in the blanks for the rest according to the ratios of the HMM Nielsen Top 20 charts. I have confirmed this on many weeks in the past. They match up nearly perfectly with the top 20 ratios at HMM.

Additionally, their guesses are too high, but I think they have altered their guessing model so that it's not exaggerated as much as it was before. For example, in most weeks they showed top 10 Blu-ray revenue exceeding that reported by HMM for the format as a whole!

So I would take The Numbers with a grain of salt. It may be useful to get a sense of how much (percentage-wise) sales of individual titles decline over time, but that's about it.

morriscroy

If their guesses are indeed too high, then this means tv on bluray is doing a lot worse than these numbers suggest.

morriscroy

So at best, the-numbers.com data only gives a possible "upper limit" on such tv on bluray units moved numbers. (Due to their overestimation).

bruceames

That would be correct. I don't about a "lot" worse though, as they have tweaked their model so that they are not as high as before. Only when the Blu-ray guesses got so high that it became obvious that they eventually did the adjustment.

morriscroy

Looking at some of the figures culled from the-numbers.com for earlier tv on bluray releases like Fringe, Chuck, Heroes, The Office, etc ... I wonder how much lower the real numbers actually were. (ie. Did they actually move 20k+ units per title back in 2009-2010 ?).

morriscroy

Or did Firefly actually move a total of 50k+ units over 2008-2010?

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/hd-talk/619...-ray-2.html#38


For that matter, did Firefly actually move a total of 300k+ units over 2008-2012?

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/hd-talk/619...-ray-2.html#41


(The Firefly bluray has been a staple of local dump bins for the past several years. I see it all the time, whenever I'm going through local bargain bins).

morriscroy

The only reason I can think of offhand for "Z Nation" going possibly dvd-only for season 1, is due to the poor reputation of the show's production company: The Asylum.

The Asylum are the guys who produced awful stuff like Sharknado, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, etc ... and various "mockbusters" like Transmorphers, etc ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum