A season dosen't have to be 22 to 24 episodes. In the UK a season (they call it a series) is 6 episodes, sometimes 7. But the quality of the episodes is 100 times that of any 22 episode season of most shows here. Think of it like a mini-series, and the next "season" is a sequel. Which is why the office is only 6 episodes.

If I'm getting 12 high quality hour long episodes (true hours, no commercials) I'm fine with paying a higher price than paying for 22 episodes of garbage. Get over it dude.

Why has no one answered my previous post?

Why are these sets (specificaly 6 Feet Under) almost half the price in England/R2 as they are in the US/R1?

It's because people aren't reading the posts with an intent on understanding. They only post garbled arguments that don't take into consideration the original post or any post for that matter.

A serious answer to your question is that the studios know Americans have quite a bit more disposable income than others around the world and so they charge a premium here. It's the same reason we get the "right" DVD only after the third "dip" and Europeans usually get it on the first release.

Who would disagree with your point? Nobody wants 12 or 22 episodes of garbage. What I and many others want is a full season, 20 or more quality episodes, from both pay cable and the networks. I don't think that's asking too much.

My favorite part of this thread was when someone's pet peeve that a "season" must be comprised of 20 or more episodes gets turned into "everyone but me is brain-dead and unintelligent" and "the educational system has failed."

Words twisted and taken out of context - you wouldn't happen to be in politics?

Sounds like you just have a hard time accepting what a full season is. These series that are 7, 12, 15 or even 24 episodes long are full seasons. The story for the seasons are tapped out. You want quality yet you aren't willing to sacrifice quantity? Do you really want to push writers to make up something they didn't want to make up in order to fill out a "full season" according to you?

I think that's the real matter of all this. What makes up a full season? One full story or a series of stories told with the restriction of budget, creativity from the writers and time needed to produce these products.

I can tell you this, it gets intense towards the last few weeks of any given production. They get a good head start of about 8 or so weeks before the season starts but throughout the season a show, depending on how complicated it can get, will run down to having the season finale be finished only days before it's shown on the air. So the amount of episodes are planned ahead of time.

I realize the discussion has moved to "Why am I paying so much for cable tv shows" to "why am I not getting more episodes". But I should wonder why is it a requirement to have the specific number of episodes? Some shows work great like that. Look Around you is a BBC series and I loved how it was just a couple of episodes. Anymore and it could have over stayed its welcome. A show like The Shield really can't go 25 episodes because of who picked it up. F/X can't afford to toss around that kind of money to get more episodes made.

Lets take 24 for example. I think the show is great, but the 24 hour time limit sometimes makes a season or two drag on to much where the second half of the day is just so unbelievable and far fetched that it destroys some of the shows aspect all because they need to extend it out. Could it be "better quality" as you put it? Yeah, I'm sure they could have thought of it better, but because of those production time restrictions they work with what they got.

Aside from that. What someone finds good will differ from what someone else finds good. So since the taste very, what's to say that My view of what a quality episode consist of is even on the same page as yours?

By now I can see you are doing this for a good discussion and point/counter point debate which I have no problem with since it's pretty interesting to discuss it with a civil and keep the whole jabs about education level or the systems in any one country off this since that will lead to a flame war and move away from an actual discussion.

Jackskeleton,

Thank you for the lengthy response. I do enjoy many of the shows that are now 12 or 14 episodes. It's just that I *really* enjoyed the extra 6 or 7 episodes we got during the first couple of seasons of certain shows. QAF is my personal pet peeve. 14 episodes just doesn't give me enough of a storyline; I want the characters to *live* longer. The monetary issue is just a irritant. I pay $19.99 for 24 episodes of series "X" and $99 for 12 episodes of series "Y" - gets me mad. :)

As for the brain-dead and education comments, I apologize. It gets frustrating when people seem to be missing the point and typing on the internet isn't a great way to communicate something passionately.

You know, there are shorter seasons from the UK that are crap and longer seasons in the US that are pure gold, so I think the argument about better or worse shows on either side just turns into a circular argument.

Another reason I have suspected that HBO's sets are more expensive is they license ALL the original music from the TV shows for DVD release. Dawson's Creek and Roswell and some others could very well be as high as HBO sets had the respective studios licensed all the original music from the series. Don't underestimate the cost of the music licensing in the final cost of the sets.

Well, to be fair, a lot of the music in shows now a days are worked out before the season starts to make sure you have the deal to carry it to dvd. A lot of those series that have music issues right now were made long before dvd ever became mainstream enough to work in a deal for (I'm looking at you wonder years!)

but it's like we said, many factors. Lack of ads, amount of budget you have for the high scale actors and creative team, budget the studio has and potential amount of buyers from the networks.

Can HBO afford to make them cost that much? yes. Though I'm not sure that every series could even be a flat rate price for number of episodes since there is also a lot of factors that go into it. X-files for example has a lot of royalties paid to the actors from the dvd sales. So they can't make them cheaper.

So is it actually cheaper for TV studios to license the music up front? Does the RIAA give you group discounts if you get that in the contract right away rather than if you wait?

And, with the Sopranos, VHS was still in it's hey day (at the end of it, but still going OK) when the sets first started to come out. So it's possible that people in HBO didn't really realize how much their TV shows would be successful on DVD.

$100 is too much 12 Ep. or 24 Ep. doesn' really matter.

Damn, I never paid $100+ for any of my seasons of X-files or Sorpranos.
I must buy them from the wrong place.:shrug:

Sopranos Season 5 shipped to my door for $65. I'm counting the days.

To be honest, VHS wasn't really a market that was all that well for sell through. So there's the difference there. You remember the amount for a Sell through VHS that was still in the Rental Window? Ouch. talk about 70+ for one VHS.

I'm sure that music rights can be tossed into the contract much easier when it's all upfront and getting negotiated a whole lot easier then having to go back to the table years down the line to draw up new contracts for just that music aspect later.

It has nothing to do with the RIAA. If you want to use a particular song in a motion picture or tv show you must secure a FILM SYNCHRONIZATION LICENSE AGREEMENT with the copyright claimant of the actual sound recording and maybe even the actual author of the song depending on the contract between the claimant of the sound recording (usually the record label) and the author (songwriter). Each Film Synch contract is different than any other and can include rights for home video or may not. It depends on the individual deal.

I would assume that once the rights become the only thing holding back a show to go to dvd then its worth becomes higher because of simple supply/demand then when you first are signing the contract. right/wrong?

I'm with Duality. I want more "full seasons" from the cable networks. And while I'm at it I would like to see more full books of at least 500 pages or more. None of that 337 page bullish, nuh-uh! -wink-

Seriously I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I don't really see it as a rip off. Take your average dvd and say it costs $15-20 for a 2 hour movie (if that long). Now $70 for 13 episodes of Deadwood or even $100 for 13 episodes of QAF, things are roughly even. It's just a lot more to pay up front and past the expected sweet spot of $30 - $50.

I greatly prefer the 6-13 ep seasons (and they are seasons) to the "full" 22 to 24. A show, even at it's best will most likely have some duds and filler eps (Scrubs is really the only exception to this rule I can find). I don't think I own a tv show that has a longer season with an ep in the season that I do not like (and it's usually more than one).

With the exception of Season 4, which was a double-length season originally broadcast in two parts, OZ is only 8 episodes per season.

With almost all of HBO's scripted hourongs pretty much blowing everything else on tv out of the water, I would think they would be allowed a little credit as to the idea that they know what they are doing when it comes to season length. Most of their shows require a great deal of patience, and I think the 12-13 episode season really lends itself well to the pacing and plotting most of their creators and writers employ. I haven't had a problem with their set prices until the Entourage. I seem to remember most episodes being around the 23-25 minute range, and I think ~$30 for 8 episodes of such is pretty steep.