One day, my friend brought over a dvd of Burn Notice and showed me the first four episodes of it. That’s it, I was hooked to the show. Anytime the show was on USA, I tuned in, and I went onto to watch every show. The episode recaps actually make sense once you've seen the first few episodes.
For most people, if they don’t watch the pilot of a serialized tv show, they will never end up watching the show. The average person doesn’t watch stuff on hulu.com. (If you’re reading this on an internet forum, you’re not the average person). They like to sit in their sofa and watch shows on their HDTV. And if they stumble onto a show, they won’t stick around unless they atleast know who the main characters were and what they’re after.

But there is something amount watching multiple episodes of a good show in a short amount of time, that completely hooks you into the show. Try it out sometime. I went on to do this to many people for many of my favorite tv shows. I showed my GF the first four episodes of How I Met Your Mother and now she is more obsessed with the show than I am. I showed my brother the first four episodes of The Shield and he instantly became hooked. I showed my friend the first four episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and later on Dexter, and he loved both. Hell I even showed my mom the first four episodes of Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars (my GF made me watch them), and now she watches both all the time.

Based on this, I think television studios should mail out a dvd containing the first four-six episodes of any good shows they are making, that are at the risk of getting cancelled due to lack of viewers.

The cost to manufacture a dvd is down to .12 cents now!! And the postage to mail a dvd costs about 50 cents (according to Netflix). The average prime time tv episode costs about $6 million dollars to produce. So for the cost of producing one episode, a studio could mail out dvds with the first four-six episodes of a tv show to 10 million people!!! From my personal experience, the majority of people that watch those first few episodes will be hooked. So even if a fifth of the people who get the dvds watch them, the show can bank on getting atleast a million new viewers for the price of producing just one episode. That million viewers is often the difference between a show getting cancelling, and it getting a second season.

So for these reasons, TV studios should give out dvds of the first 4-6 episodes of any good serialized tv show that is flailing in ratings (Firefly, Arrested Development, hell even Family Guy initially). They should encourage the person to pass on the dvd to family and friends if he enjoyed it. Ask them to watch subsequent episodes on hulu.com to catch up to the current season. Include a coupon that gives them $5 off the first season dvd boxset so they might purchase the whole season of the show. Tell them to buy old episodes on itunes. AOL did it, and they were selling a crappy product that no body wanted. So why don’t tv studios do it with good shows with a product that people actually do want (who doesn’t like free dvds).

This marketing method could make the difference between a great serialized tv show getting cancelled prematurely, or winding up as a huge hit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Get this idea out there to as many people as you can. Spread it around so that someone in marketing somewhere might stumble on to it. Keep this thread bumped. Television gets saved (reality tv doesn't take over primetime).

And we get a ton of great dvds of tv shows in the mail to add to our collections. They should totally package the dvds to look nice though, even if it's just a dvd sleeve, make it a well packaged nice looking dvd sleeve. Something that people wouldn't want to throw away. Something they would actually want to display on their entertainment centers and show to other people.

It's win win, there.

Crackwhore.

WALL OF TEXT

Too fucking expensive with only theoretical gain.

>>Crackwhore.

sold!

>>3216765
>The cost to manufacture a dvd is down to .12 cents now!! And the postage to mail a dvd costs about 50 cents (according to Netflix). The average prime time tv episode costs about $6 million dollars to produce. So for the cost of producing one episode, a studio could mail out dvds with the first four-six episodes of a tv show to 10 million people!!!

Lern2read

>>3216790
Fuck you, I wrote that post before you decided to inundate us with the fucking Bible.

If Kings is canceled I will murder every Dancing with the Stars and American Idol contestant on live television.

>Remember how AOL used to mail out those annoying CDs for free internet that no one wanted.

God I hated that shit

>>3216798
Seconded.

Looks like someone copied and pasted from http://dis.4chan.org/read/tele/1235115717

This is something TV should have done YEARS ago when DVD began to get popular.

I agree with Anon above, still too expensive with too little of gain.

Face it, the future of TV will be ran with 'reality' shows. There is little expense and a huge gain, people lap that shit up. All I hear about is people going crazy about American Idle or Dancing with the Stars or any other of those shitty shows. It's practically all I hear my co-workers talking about.

Then you try to move the conversation to an actual show, and they seem like a deer caught in the fucking headlights? "Kings? Never heard of it." Oh its pretty cool, I mean you're religious right? Its the story of David but the twist is its set in present time. "Oh cool. I'll have to check it out." Motherfuckers couldn't bluff to save their lives.

Serialized shows of course won't die out, probably never. But they will continue to get more generic as time goes on to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible as time goes on.

Dear TV producers.

Your business is dying. Video on Demand will replace TV as we know it today and instead of using an ancient technology (DVDs) to just market the shows you have, create a business model that charges people a few cent per episode. Give them the first 2 or 3 for free and then shell out ad free tv episodes that I can watch whenever I like.

But that will never happen because you are caught in conventional thought.

anon

>>3217417
Serialized television shows are turning into modern soap operas, that's why they are becoming so bland. They focus TOO MUCH on the romances and relationships now. Remember how the characters' lives used to take a back seat to the plot of the episode in older dramas?

this is largely an american problem, they need to stop milking every show until the end. just do it like britian and end it after 2-3 seasons.
ofc course there are exeptions, but tbh it's not attractive 2 jump into an show on season 4-5.

>>3217469 just do it like britian

But we want good shows.

>>3217436
I agree with this, they should really stop forcing that shit into their shows even when it doesn't work or is completely irrelevant. This bothers the hell out of me.

>>3217469
True that some shows just do not know when to quit while they're ahead, but at the same time if I like a show I don't want there to be 12 damn episodes in the entire series. That leaves you completely unsatisfied.

>>3217469
cosign

>>3217500
that is true fellow anon, but i think it's a balance they have to balance. But it also opens other avenus, eg 3 season that gets a good following and then maybe continue with a movie or dvd releases.
Im not saying any way is better then the other but i do believe that tv networks have to change how they produce their shows

The future lies in online series folks. They put stuff online if it does good it gets a dvd release. Also tv has been shit for years.

TV sucks. who cares?