What's
best way to watch an entire day of "Friends"? Or first season of "Magnum P.I."? How about hours upon hours of "Knight Rider," "24" and "The Sopranos"?From swish soirees to simply rotting away on sofa, time suckage is at a maximum these days, thanks to plethora of TV-to-DVD products, and they're spawning new ways to fill your weekends.
TV programs, no doubt, have become fastest growing segment of DVD business, according to industry experts. Three years ago, fewer than a hundred shows were available on disc. Now, there are more than 800 on market, with dozens more coming out each week.
According to Video Store Magazine research, U.S. sales of TV shows on DVD nearly tripled from $300 million in 2001 to $870 million in 2002. TV shows make up an estimated 10 per cent of DVD market, which last year tallied more than $1 billion in sales.
While TV shows on DVD are nothing new - it's arguably biggest-growth genre in digital format - today's baby-boomer bounty demonstrates that classic series are coming out with increasing frequency. Call it a trend within a trend, one fueled by more older viewers tuning in to DVD as it continues to gain mass appeal and by studios digging deeper into their catalogs as they exhaust newer fare. Undeniably, there is a great sense of rediscovery as fans chase titles they remember most fondly from their younger years - not just classic movies, but classic TV shows like: "I Love Lucy" and "Star Trek" besides "Have Gun, Will Travel". This occurs in music business, but it's now redefining home-video business.
The demand is certainly there, and so is supply. Premium pricing and escalating demand translate into an increasingly lucrative profit channel for suppliers. According to DVD Release Report, a weekly tip sheet, suppliers last year released 264 titles based on TV programs, more than 100 of them multidisc sets. The trend is toward complete-season sets, in which difference in capacity and shelf space is most pronounced.
