Fromundacheese

Kind of a goofy question but it crossed my mind today and I had to ask.
How long has tuesday been the new release day? In other words I cannot remember when tuesday was not the new release day.

mdnitoil

It has been ever since I started buying DVDs and that was darn near at the beginning. I got in maybe 6 months after the initial Warner wave that included Twister, etc.

JCWBobC

Back in the 80's Friday was new release day for VHS movies. Somewhere in the early 90's it switched to Tues. because stores complained that they didn't have enough time to get the tapes processed for the weekend rentals. Also they wanted to build up rentals during the week, which were very slow rental days back then.

smurr05

Interesting...I didn't remember that even though I was very much a part of that era....and even a couple of era's before!!!

rw2516

I can remember during the 70s when albums were released every day of the week. Movies used to open in theaters on wednesdays in the 60s.

orangerunner

I still have an old video distributor catalogue from September 1987. It seems most of the major studio VHS rental releases were either Wednesday or Thursday.

For instance Angel Heart was September 24 which was a Thursday or Lethal Weapon was October 21 which was a Wednesday.

I guess the Tuesday release started sometime when DVD was launched.

The Monkees

No way! I remember going with my mom to the video stores in the mid 90s on Tuesdays all the time (when school was out) it HAD to have changed in the very late 80s or very early 90s.

davidh777

I remember learning to hit the grocery store on Tuesdays for new VHS rentals sometime in the mid-'90s or so

bobert3

Aren't new CDs released on Tuesday also?

MTRodaba2468

Yes, they are.

gmanca

I want to say up until late '97 or '98 it was still Friday but I do remember that certain major releases were on Tuesdays like when Batman Forever came out for Halloween as a special Monday early release at K-mart. I do know that when The Langoliers was first on Video, apparently in August of '97, that was a Friday release.

matome

It was already Tuesdays back in '90-91 when I started buying laserdiscs at Tower Video and waiting for new releases.

Fromundacheese

So Tuesdays started in the 80s sometime?

ScissorPuppy

Batman (89) was released on a Wednesday. Sometime in the late 80's Tuesday was the chosen day for rental release days. Sell through copies where probably chosen differently, but used Tuesday ( due to already set routes) unless it was a special release.

jjcool

Since working at the music store in the early 90s, release day has been Tuesday, for albums as well as movies.

JCWBobC

In the old video catalogs, Baker & Taylor was the biggest back then, I'm pretty sure Thursday would have been the ship day and the stores would get the tapes on Friday. That's why they were complaining they didn't have time to process them in time for the Friday night rentals. I'm pretty sure Lethal Weapon was a sell-through title but it's been too long for me to remember 100%. I used to have a bunch of old video catalogs in my mom's attic that I can look for next time I visit her.

orangerunner

I think the original Lethal Weapon was a rental but Lethal Weapon 2 was the first major R-Rated sell-through title when it was released on February 8, 1990.

JCWBobC

I remember the first Beverly Hills Cop was the first R-Rated sell-through title. I think one of the Star Trek movies was the first big film to be released as a sell-through title but again that was a long time again and I could be wrong.

Found this on Google:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GSQ...page&q&f=false

clckworang

I remember planning regular Tuesday trips to rent VHS tapes years before DVD was out.

Abob Teff

While some titles are exceptions, Tuesdays have been the standard of the home entertainment industry since the industry became "mainstream" in the mid 80s.

There are numerous reasons given -- but one has to wonder which one was the actual reason and which ones were the unexpected benefits. I was always told Tuesday was the day so that retailers (particularly smaller retailers) would have time to receive and prep product well before the weekend.

I haven't seen this one mentioned yet: typically, revenue reports/sales figures are released on Monday -- releasing a title on Tuesday adds 3 days worth of revenue to the title's numbers. (Similar to how a theatrical release that is released on Wednesday gets to count Wednesday and Thursday in its "weekend" box office totals.)

JP5683

Books are also released on Tuesdays

jdslater1

In the UK new DVDs and BDS get released on Mondays and computer games on a Friday.

schbee

I believe you are correct, I bought and sold used VHS tapes in the late 80's with Mom and Pop stores and it was Thursdays they hit the stores and the stores werent supposed to put them out for rental until Friday.

orangerunner

I came across some old movie magazines that contained "What's New on Video" columns which often gave the release date of the latest videos.

Terminator 2 came out on Dec 12, 1991 which was a Thursday
Jungle Fever January 16, 1992, Thursday
Mobsters January 30, 1992, Thursday
The Paper Oct 12, 1994 Wednesday
Crooklyn October 19, 1994 Wednesday
The Cowboy Way Oct. 26, 1994 Wednesday
Fall Time November 14, 1995 Tuesday

From these examples it looks like Tuesday may have been the release date around 1995 although it probably depended on the studio releasing the film.

Alan Smithee

In the later 80s the video store we went to used to send out a calendar each month with new titles listed on the days they were coming in- I remember some came in on Tues and Wed, some might have come in on Thurs also. I bought many CDs on release date but don't remember what day they came out, but I did remember sometime in the 90s (around the time DVD first started) that media release dates were going to all Tuesdays to make it less confusing.