On May 1, the blissful symbiosis between television and the DVD revolution will reach its apex. "Family Guy," the uproarious and controversial animated series yanked by FOX for its crassness, is making its proud return to network television with brand new episodes.
While the show had garnered impressive ratings in reruns on Cartoon Network, it was the record-setting DVD sales that forced FOX to re-hire creator Seth MacFarlane. Now, thanks to college kids everywhere buying those yellow and aquamarine DVD boxes, Stewie will try to kill Lois in brand-new fashions.
This has been a long time coming, however, as television addicts and executives are finally coming around to embracing the digital age.
The former group seem to be taking this route at astoundingly increasing rates. According to a 2004 article in USA Today, DVD sales for television programs had jumped to $2 billion in 2004 from $1.5 billion in 2003, and industry growth over the next four years is estimated to expand at a 30 percent rate annually.
The greatest effect of the TV-on-DVD revolution has been the reappearance of cult classics long since dropped by network executives. Judd Apatow's engrossing and quirky comedy about high school in the '80s, "Freaks and Geeks," deserved better treatment from NBC. Featuring a pre-"Spiderman" James Franco and Linda Cardellini as his unsettlingly sexy friend, the show only survived 18 episodes.
I'd bet the Peacock network would be salivating at the opportunity to bring "Freaks" back and beef up its wimpy scripted programming roster. One can only dream that Apatow's equally enjoyable college show "Undeclared" will be released on disc soon.
Everyone has their own cult show which was mercilessly cut by network heads more concerned with advertising revenue than artistic merit. "Greg the Bunny" and "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" were two such shows, as was ABC's "Sports Night," the Aaron Sorkin riff on what it would look like if ESPN ran on espresso beans instead of Gatorade.
A quick aside with regards to that last show. I never quite "got" "Sports Night." The comedy show was stuck between attempting to mine humor from sports and the workplace. Hardcore sports fans tuned in and gave up when Sorkin infused the show with romance and those tuning in for a good laugh were turned away by the melodramatic sideplots. As a fun game, watch early seasons of "The West Wing" on DVD and see how many plot devices and actors Sorkin reuses.
ANYWAY, these short-lived shows, with devoted followings that were too small to make an imprint on broadcast television, have found a second life in home-video collections. Yet take the 8-10 million adoring fans and give them the opportunity to own all the episodes of their favorite long-gone series. At $20-40 a pop, that's quite a hefty profit for a show whose production costs are zero.
Whether or not Apatow and Sorkin still rake in money from those DVD sales is probably an issue way too complex for anyone without a J.D. in contract law to understand. Regardless, whoever is reaping the benefits has found a brilliant sales plan.
Take a show that has been dead for years and was unprofitable while on the air. Bring back the cast for a few "making of" documentaries and half-baked commentary tracks, touch up the visuals, and stick them on a disc. Any revenues which come from DVD sales are just gravy. It's like finding a box of old baseball cards and selling them on eBay.
These same profiteers are also using DVD sales as a whole new mode of advertising. With shows such as "24," "The OC," and "Arrested Development," production studios are trying to boost interest and viewership by releasing the previous season's episodes just weeks before the next season premieres. It's the same mentality that urged Warner Brothers to inexplicably release a special edition of "Miss Congeniality" before the sequel comes out this month. (Notice the "Arrested" reference. I think this breaks the record for 10 consecutive columns mentioning the same show.)
The sociological aspects of buying the DVD for a television show which you can catch on re-runs, like "The West Wing" or "The Simpsons," are probably fascinating to go into, but I know I'd just come off as an idiot for attempting to analyze it. Especially since I own five different television series on DVD, including those two.
Everyone in the entertainment business recycles ideas with sequels, spin-offs, spoofs and blatant rip-offs. But I doubt many could have foreseen the amazingly profitable business of recycling old television shows into "must-haves" for a home-video collection.
Come May 1, maybe Peter Griffin will finally get to see his favorite episodes of "Gumbel and Gumbel" on DVD.
