I am really fed up with CBS and how they totally screw dvd buyers with their releases. The problem is they will bring back a classic series, release a few seasons of the series, and then drop it if the sales aren't fantastic.

After more than a year of waiting, it appears I won't see any more releases of Gunsmoke or Rawhide which were big tv releases in 2008. For completists like myself, this drives me nuts. CBS has done this before with shows like Leave it to Beaver. After 4 years, I don't think Beaver is coming back. And despite several requests from fans, CBS continues to not release the remaining seasons of Survivor on dvd.

I realize it is all about money, but I certainly will think twice about buying a new series with CBS behind it.

I know what you mean.

I bought all the seasons that came out of Laverne & Shirley. The last season was released in April 2008.
An entire year+ has now gone by without so much as a rumor as to when Season 5 would get released.

I think Leave it to Beaver is a Universal release and not CBS/Paramount.

What about Kojak ?

I would love to see em release the rest of the seasons.

Yes, I definitely think that companies should be forced to release things they've learned won't sell well so they can lose money.

They could lose money in the long run when collectors stop buying individual seasons and wait to see if the complete series is ever released.

Sadly every studio does this. I would not even want to begin listing very large number of seasons/volumes that I've bough only to have the rest of the series never released. Its ridiculous. I cannot necessarily blame the studios for not wanting to release something that they wont make there money back on but still... Offer us something. Why not at least sell the DVDs through the studios website? Some studios have done that and so far kept the prices low. I'm also bugged how poor sales of on series can cause a similar series to never see the light of day. Lame!

If Season 1 of a series, like Kojak, sells poorly, why would any studio think that subsequent seasons will sell any better. Sales of subsequent seasons go down, if only because some people who bought the first season did so either because they vaguely remembered the show from years earlier or they had heard good things about it and when they actually got the show, it didn't live up to expectations. There's only so much shelf space at B&M retailers as well. Do you think any retailer is going to want to commit space to stocking nearly 20 seasons of Gunsmoke (more if they release them as half seasons).

I see more studios going to companies like Mill Creek and letting Mill Creek put out cheap releases of old shows at bargain basement prices. They've already done this with Wanted Dead or Alive and Wiseguy. The shows won't look all that good (a show like Wanted never looked all that good anyway on the TVs that were around in the late 1950s anyway) and there won't be much in the way of extras, but street prices of $10 a season or $20 a series will get people to buy. Plus, the studio won't pay money restoring the masters and promoting the series.

Yup, that's how Shout! Factory has been doing things.

I wouldn't mind if they leased Kojak out to the company that did the Banacek sets. I thought the Banacek seasons looked cleaner and more pristine than some of The Rockford Files seasons which had lots of specks and dirt on some of the episodes.
How much did they make selling Banacek?...it has become a niche market for sure but still someone is making some money?

They should offer burn-on-demand for all their tv series that haven't been released on DVD.

I've run into this after having watched the first four seasons of the Bob Newhart Show. From what I understand, there are no plans to release the final two seasons, which disappoints me greatly as this is a fantastic show of which I'd love to be able to see the remaining episodes.

Shhhh... The studios might hear you!

I hope they do hear us. If they aren't going to release them as sets it would be nice to setup a system for burn on demand. Personally I think Paramount is missing out on a gold mine of create your own Star Trek DVDs. I'd love to be able to put together some custom DVDs of the shows/eps I love and dump the filler eps.

Perhaps tier 1 is a DVD release, and if that fails tier 2 is putting the show up on iTunes. They can't be risking much using that service, can they?

Well, we finally got the last two seasons of Taxi in 2009, (with some original music edited out). I think that was a wait of about three or four years.

I waiting for announcements on the last two seasons of Family Ties.

I thought there had been some announcement of Survivor on burn on demand, but that was a while ago. Seems like this would be the time with the new season of alumni.

The dvd releases were excellent with good commentaries and behind the scene extras.

I want the rest of The New Zoo Revue! cause Freddie still rocks after all these years.

Exactly why I won't touch Everwood.

It's not just CBS. Every studio does the same thing. FOX has only released 4 seasons of NYPD Blue and sales apparently weren't good enough to release the last 8 seasons. Sony hasn't touched Party of Five since season 3 and that ran 6 seasons.

Also, I assume you have noticed that they are doing split season sets for alot of these shows to test sales? Cannon, which is an old 70's show with William Conrad, got a season 1 part 1 and part 2. The Fugitive also got split season sets.

So I wouldn't single out this studio as being jerks.

Even if they do release all the seasons of sets, they screw over fans by releasing complete series sets down the line that have exclusive features. We are screwed either way. Although one can conceivably sell the older season sets to cover the cost of the new series sets, but it is a bit of an FU to those fans that have been buying the sets all along.

I'm curious about the results of the Fox experiment from a couple years ago. I know it was an all out failure, but I wonder which sold better, The Fall Guy complete season one, or the Fall Guy season one part one & season one part two. They released all three at the same time, I'll bet the complete season sold better than the split.

Yeah I'm aware that other studios do this as well. ABC's Young Riders got one season release and that was it. It is just seems like CBS is the worst offender especially with their classic tv shows.

and will CBS ever release Dennis the Menace???

When they pull this crap, then they need to license the unreleased DVD seasons to places like Hulu and iTunes.