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.

Suela! *tackle* Watch and marvel as I hijack the thread.

Remember that LJ you sent me a link to a while back, where the poster ended up playing bait-the-troll with the random person who harassed her over AIM? Any idea where to find that?

sheis. Um. No, but I think Sorlklewis friended her. So you could maybe find it on her friends list. I want to say it was something like cheekyweebisom?

One more question -- do you remember when this was?

Errrrm, some months ago. I'll dig around my email but I think it was last fall some time.

Never mind, found it. You are a goddess with an excellent memory.

I was wrong! No, I was right, last October.

[link] [link] [link]

Thanks loads, 'Suela. Mickie put me on to the ADV connection for Farscape. I have queries out to them and JHC for confirmation that the upcoming 4-show mini had help from the DVD sales.

It turns out there are communities like b.org for the Sopranos (which I didn't know). A helpful person there has sent me evidence (a scan of an official fax!) indicating very strongly that sales of Sopranos S1 & S2 boxsets were instrumental in setting the budget for, and making possible, the later series. Way cool, to have "It wouldn't have happened without the fans buying DVD's" in so clear a way.

There is pretty good evidence on Family Guy, too. Thanks for the lead, Shawn.

As far as I have been able to dredge up, nothing concrete has happened for Firefly. It seems the Universal script deal went down before the DVD sales were in, and the picture is still awaiting a light.

Nothing concrete on Angel getting any kind of boost from DVD, either. It is really going to suck if I have to soft-pedal the ME efforts because I cannot get a checkable fact. Grr.

BTW: So far, no one is saying that DVD is a solid first-market for anything. Even direct-to-disc releases are more in the way of cutting losses than making gains. (Excepting some Disney stuff budgeted very low, aimed at DVD first-market. The budgets are like 1.5 episodes of a show.)

ETA: That aim transcript is hilarious!