Soaps on DVD: Sustainable idea or passing fad?

[quartermainefan]

Dark Shadows you can stream also from Netflix. When the story of soaps gets written, it will turn out that of all of them it was Dark Shadows that was the most enduring (supernaturally enough)

[Eric83]

I'm quite sure they are. I have seen the first episode of DAYS, and the first week of Y&R before.

[SFK]

I'm almost positive John Conboy owns Capitol. It was a John Conboy production as stated in the credits. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a site advertising Capitol for foreign distribution/syndication, not unlike the one where Loving/The City and AMC are advertised in partnership with Agnes Nixon.

[DRW50]

Let's make sure we tell the media that when they start the story that Tim Burton alone elevated this sickening trash into something worth watching.

[jcar03]

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiping

[Chris B]

Soaps on DVD is a HUGE HUGE market that is still viable, but so much valuable time and money has been wasted. By this point ATWT and GL should be SEASONED shows on DVD. Even for the current soaps, DVDs for couples or of recent episodes would fly off the shelves. All the canceled soaps selling farewell DVDs would be HUGE sellers. You have the show to promote your product 5 days a week, plus all the promo they get when canceled. ATWT and GL would promote their books at the end of every episode (before the next day previews) and they were all on the best sellers list.

I think this stuff with the PGP soaps is GREAT, but I don't see it sparking anything. ABC has a department that could be producing DVDs for AMC and OLTL (or GH) if they wanted to. They've seen how successful ATWT has been with very little promo and not being available in stores. They've had enough time to put together a collection for the end of AMC or OLTL. They've chosen to do nothing. Same for DAYS. Then internationally we see soaps being released and being successful. That includes UK soaps AND American soaps like B&B, Santa Barbara, Sunset Beach, etc. being released.

I don't understand how people can accept that soaps are dying and not profitable when they aren't doing anything to make it so. We need DVDs and we need promo comparable to what other shows are getting.

[Soapsuds]

I was the one that keep asking for soaps on DVD. I don't know how many threads I started stating it...lol

[DRW50]

ABC released videos in the early/mid 90's and I think the declining sales may have scared them off.

Shows like Santa Barbara may suffer due to music rights issues. There would also likely be some type of legal battle if the past of that show is any indication.

[Chris B]

When ABC released those VHS it was a different market. The fact that nobody has tried soaps until now, when we're branching out into Blu-Ray is crazy. Not one soap attempted a release during the big TV on DVD boom.

[DRW50]

I think there was a longtime assumption these weren't going to be popular. I think some of the success of the So Long Springfield stuff and maybe SOD's tribute to ATWT (I don't know the sales on that) might have caused them to change their mind.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Sony could easily distribute a few DAYS and Y&R sets, but they've never tried. It's not like they don't have the resources to do so.

Then again, Sony is really horrible when it comes to completing many primetime shows on DVD, so they probably think there's no market for their daytime soaps.

[SFK]

I'm going to guess that no one really knows, or has taken the time to think about, how best to market daytime soaps on DVD. Thousands of episodes on DVD is just not going to happen, so do you focus on specific eras or characters/couples, or do you do general highlight episodes like ATWT and GL have done? Or do you do more retrospectives like the Erica/Reva/Roger/Wedding videos? I still say that streaming is the way to go. It's been proven that that's a very doable way of getting all of the surviving episodes online. I have faith that that will eventually happen. There will come a time when someone's going to want that "wasted real estate" were master tapes are collecting dust, and some lucky interns are going to get the job of transferring all of that to digital and someone is going to want to make some bucks off of this material. It WILL happen. Sooner or later. Maybe we should write Agnes Nixon and her people, for starters. She could be streaming Loving/The City on her own website for iTunes-like prices.

[Chris B]

I like the idea of streaming to supplement and definitely think Hulu and Netflix should be an avenue they utilize, but I like DVDs more because it's forever. The streaming is not forever, just look at the PGP soaps on AOL.

I think a variety of ideas would work. The Best Of collections are a good start, but you can release a 20 episode collection focusing on a specific storyline or a block of 20 episodes centering around an event like a wedding. For example, Bob and Kim's wedding on ATWT I have a set of five DVDs covering the before and after. These episodes also include Julianne Moore's arrival and the return of Helen Wagner to the show. You get to see the majority of the cast, plus lots of action. I think a DVD like that would sell to ATWT fans.

I understand edits take more time and money to make, but you can easily take key episodes to develop a storyline, or consecutive over a period of time. And I *do* think it's possible to release some soaps, or years in their entirety. You may not end up releasing everything, but it's possible. I've been collecting Passions and Port Charles bootleg and complete years don't take up much space. Also, it's very cheap to make DVDs, so for soaps that would actually sell, I wouldn't be opposed to this. It worked for Dark Shadows a soap canceled for 40 years lol. You can't tell me General Hospital or Days of Our Lives with their rabid fanbases wouldn't sell well for complete years. They key is releasing it in a substantial boxset of six months to a year at a time. Nobody will want 20 episodes at a time. It's too expensive and takes too long.

[Soapsuds]

Agreed! As for the 20 episodes...I wish they would up it to 30. It would probably cost 30 bucks but I'd be willing to get more episodes per DVD release. Like you said releasing 20 episodes at a time would take too long to get a lot of the treasured episodes. But I dont want the DVD releases to be delayed.

I wonder if once the episodes were put online we as fans could choose which episodes we want on a 30 or 40 dvd set and ordered it on demand on DVD. What I mean is I get 30 episodes that have Lucinda on it and you order a 30 eppy set with all Barbara or one that deals with murders.....I wonder if that is possible. I should have put this on the ATWT DVD set thread.

[DRW50]

Streaming can be more complicated than it seems. Netflix is having problems getting the money together to pay for a lot of the video streams they wanted.