Shout! Factory Offers TV DVD Sets Exclusively Online
18 Dec, 2009 By: John Latchem
Our friends at Shout! Factory are at it again. Well known for an ability to put to market TV DVD product that other studios don’t seem willing or able to release, Shout! Factory is now preparing to offer a line of products directly to the consumer through .
Starting Jan. 19, TV DVD collectors will be able to order new seasons of their favorite shows, such as Mr. Belvedere: Season Four (three-DVD set) with commentaries by creator and cast; Room 222: Season Two (four-DVD set); My Two Dads: Season Two (three-DVD set); and Ironside: Season Three (seven-DVD set).
After that, new titles will roll out monthly, such as The Bill Cosby Show: Season Two (four-DVD set), The Goldbergs: The Complete Series (six-DVD set) and The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog Vol. Three (four-DVD set).
I actually had a chance to speak with Shout! Factory president Garson Foos a few months back about this release strategy, which he teased as his answer to the manufacturing-on-demand system offered by Amazon.com and Warner. He said the idea was to order limited runs of the DVD sets, which would be pressed copies, not DVD-Rs that are more prone to wear out over time.
Offering them directly to the consumer gives fans a chance to complete their collection, and ordering limited supplies cuts down on the distributor’s liability if they don’t sell as well as hoped.
Since selling direct to the consumer worked so well for Shout! Factory with its boxed sets of “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe” cartoons, this strategy just seems to make sense. And if demand turns out to be strong enough, there’s nothing stopping a wider retail release down the line.