Gus, can you be more specific about what you need? I expect the SFS crowd could provide some answers, but I think more detail would be good or we'll just overwhelm you with data.

'Suela: My present thesis is that fans have voted with their dollars via DVD purchases, sending a message of mandate to the creative community. I conjecture that the mandate is being heard.

I want to contrast sales figures of DVDs against by-season production budgets. My assertion is that DVD sales are directly reflective of fan interest (being most valuable in their re-view utility). This is in an effort to assign a numeric value to fan-perceived quality.

The "assignment" to the article is only a few hours old, so I am still floundering around. That's the core, though.

My present thesis is that fans have voted with their dollars via DVD purchases, sending a message of mandate to the creative community. I conjecture that the mandate is being heard.

You might address this on a spectrum of: shows that are hits but do poorly in syndication (like reality shows); shows that succeed in syndication but don't generate huge DVD sales (most comedies I'd guess, like Friends) and shows that people want to own and rewatch (quality drama like Homicide, The Sopranos, and genre like Buffy, Firefly, Star Trek). Just from an economic perspective I'm thinking about having that longevity is the music equivalent of having Van Morrison in your catalog - it's just always going to sell for the next thirty years.

shows that succeed in syndication but don't generate huge DVD sales (most comedies I'd guess, like Friends)

I was under the assumption that DVD sales were not targeted for these markets -- they key is to get them into high syndication rotation, and DVD sales cut into that. I wonder what the DVD sales are like in markets where they don't syndicate.

'Suela: My present thesis is that fans have voted with their dollars via DVD purchases, sending a message of mandate to the creative community. I conjecture that the mandate is being heard.

You know of the example of Family Guy, right? Anyway, in making sure I remembered right, I came across this which may offer some perspectives.

CNN just had an article about shows that get a new life on DVD, didn't they?

Thanks, ita, for that red herring. I could not find a market in which Friends was not syndicated.

Shawn: Thanks for the link. The quote …

What this signals is that Nielsens are becoming an ever-less-reliable measure of how popular a TV show really is."

… is going to be in the article, by hook or by crook.

DavidS: Fan respect for quality (regardless of genre) is a key point. I'm feeling that connecting this notion up with the notion of financial benefits for networks/DVD producers is the Good that this piece might do.

(Dana, Thanks. I tracked that sucker down.)

ita, for that red herring. I could not find a market in which Friends was not syndicated.

You couldn't find a US market. The reason you can buy DVDs so much earlier in the UK is because they have no syndication to protect.

It's why I got the region-free DVD player.

Well, not for Friends. For Buffy, which followed the same market wisdom.

Just for the record: I am completely doomed on this article thing.

Is there a correct term for shows available in foreign markets after first-run US broadcast? (I had that lumped together with 'syndication" in my brain.)

eta: Can I kill a thread, or what?

Sorry, Gus, I'm only online during the workday, and I'm in Hawaii on business, so my ability to reply is a little limited.

There has been a fair amount of discussion about the price of production and the value of dvd sales in the Farscape community. Mickie or Buggs could probably correct me on this, but the show cost about $1.5m per episode to produce, about half of which was carried by the network (Sci-Fi) and half carried by the production company (The Jim Henson Company).

The dvds are released by ADV films, a small Houston-based firm that specializes primarily in anime. While the dvds are fairly expensive compared to those of other genre shows (a full season goes for $120 retail, two or three times the cost of Buffy), they're selling pretty well, and the fan community has formed an alliance with ADV to promote the show.

Because the show is currently aired only on Sci-Fi, in almost random order, and frequently moved around the schedule, dvds are at this point the primary means by which new people find the show.

As I recall, some folks did some investigation last year into the financials associated with going direct-to-dvd, and the answer was that it wouldn't recoup the production costs without the advertising revenue one gets from broadcast. Which is a shame, but expected.