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Given that most Prime Time shows seemingly have more commercial time than show time nowadays, what would be the reaction to a TV show released exclusively on DVD??Imagine, for a moment, a show produced like a regular television show, about 24 eps a season, but shown only on DVD sets (priced cheaply, of course).
I'd make each episode run 26 minutes, and they'd even have act breaks to make it look like a TV show...
And, of course, the show would have to be good, but the best part is, you could rent it for a day at Blockbuster to see if it's good or not.
Anyhow, what do you guys think?
Follow Ups:
There's an old TV production saying: "The beast must be fed." There are xx hours of programming a day, and it's gotta get filled somehow, which is why you see those awful infomercials at 4am.The first problem is finding a new food to feed the beast that will sell. It's a long, labrynthine process getting a pilot filmed, let alone launching a new series. Then, there's no guarantee people will like it. (Which is why some truly excrable shows sometimes last only a few episodes.) Imagine a production company going through the trouble of writing, casting, filming and producing 13 episodes (a fair, common starting point), THEN getting it all transferred to DVD, THEN getting it distributed — only to find out no one liked it. That company would be out some serious coin, and my guess is many of the executives there would "never work in this town again."
TV also does not thrive on innovation and change — witness all the "Everybody Loves Raymond" clones, all the reality TV clones, all the "news" magazine clones, etc.
Shows like "The Sopranos" and "Sex In the City" have healthy DVD and video rentals because they're already broadcast hits.
And, traditionally, "Straight to Video" is reserved for dogs of movies and other gross studio miscalculations.
Having said that, it would be really cool if someone had the balls (and the talent) to make it work.
Perhaps the biggest problem would be the distribution. Let's say it's a hit. Let's say there's a small town of 25,000 people with one Blockbuster. Let's say 5,000 of those people want to rent this week's episode. How you gonna do that? You'd have a lot of pissed off people. It's already damn hard for me to get "The Sopranos" when it comes out, and I live in a fairly large metropolitan corridor. The waste alone of time trying to get the damn show, and previously viewed DVD's would be staggering. Nevermind trying to distribute in a city like New Yorl.I guess that's why they invented pay for view on cable.
Commercial free shows already exist on TV. We have vcrs for time shifting. What's the point of the DVD?
Your point is well taken, but the shows themselves are shorter than they were years ago. A program today will run 22 minutes without the commercials on free TV. Ten years ago, they went about 23 minutes plus, 15 years ago, they ran close to 24 minutes, and from the inception of TV up to about the late 70s, all shows ran 26 minutes. It may not seem like a big difference, but the extra four minutes can really give the creative team liberties and allow them to conduct an expanded opening sequence and longer, more readable credits at the end of the show. The pacing of the program itself wouldn't have to be rushed, either.I look at it as an alternative to HBO, which not everyone can have access to anyway. HBO is about ten bucks a month on top of what we already pay for basic cable/satellite. If it's priced cheaply enough, I think more people will get a chance to see the show. In addition, you get the ability to pause, go back, skip forward etc. in high quality Component Video, as opposed to dithered down VHS/Tivo quality.
Anyway, I welcome some more opinions on this. It's a bit out of the box, so I might expect some opinions either way.
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