TV on DVD

1. David Simon, creator of The Wire (aka “TV for people who claim not to own TV sets”) says that television as a medium has “short-changed itself” because of advertising, and that “only when television managed to liberate itself from the economic construct of advertising was there a real emancipation of story.” I pass that along with a certain reluctance, because I think it’s basically poppycock.* The way Simon describes it, it sounds like the equivalent of saying that theatre has short-changed itself by the need to have between one and four intermissions, and not until the intermissionless Man of La Mancha did the art form really liberate itself. It’s an even odder argument in a time when HBO is being outdone by other cable channels that do have commercial interruptions. But Simon made a great show, one that probably couldn’t have been done on a network with advertising, and anything he says is on the subject is of interest. (And having argued that the over-abundance of commercials and the shrinking of running times is really hurting network TV, I’d never argue that commercials can’t have a negative effect on content. They do all the time, not just in terms of the way stories are told but in what advertisers are willing to accept.)

Shout! Factory is running a poll on which of their releases should be followed up with another season set. Despite an attempt by Paper Chase fans to stuff the virtual ballot box, Mr. Belvedere is still in the lead, has been in the lead from the beginning of the poll, and is also apparently beating all these other titles in actual sales. I don’t know why Mr. Belvedere is the most popular show ever, but apparently it is. And ironically, Fox has more or less nuked its classic-film DVD division, meaning that we may never see DVD releases of the original Belvedere movies with Clifton Webb, yet there will almost certainly be more season sets of the indestructible TV series and its star, Roger De Bris.

I’m a little late linking to this, but I only just found it: MarketWatch did a long piece a few weeks ago on the business of non-current TV shows on DVD.