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Macleans.ca

Canada’s magazine

TV On DVD Exclusives – Which Means “Stuff Stores Won’t Carry”

Shout! Factory, which now basically has the TV-on-DVD business to itself (when it comes to non-current items), is trying a new strategy that I sincerely hope will work out. In an effort to continue releasing shows, they’re going to make a bunch of season sets available as “Online Exclusives,” available from Shoutfactory.com’s online store. The site does appear to offer shipping to Canada, and TVshowsondvd.com reports that these releases will be factory-produced sets, making it more appealing than the computer-burned discs being offered by Warner Brothers and other companies.

Say Hello/Goodbye To Big Screen Classics

As a follow-up/rebuttal to our piece “Say Goodbye To Big Screen Classics,” Kevin Jagernauth at the Playlist talks to Criterion Collection CEO Jonathan Turrell, who says that independent companies like his own are not experiencing the same downturn as the big studios — “If we’re down, we’re down a very small amount” — and that despite the slower pace of recent releases, there has been “no concerted effort to go to newer films.” It’s a good piece and well worth looking at, particularly since my piece focused so heavily on the negative side of the situation; this is the other side, where some companies are still able to get older/classic movies onto the DVD marketplace.

This Is Not a Well-Thought-Out Concept For a DVD Box Set

If you thought there was fan controversy over the idea of having to buy a complete Mary Tyler Moore box set to get the last three seasons, Sony’s announcement of a “Norman Lear Collection” will cause more controversy, or at least it should, because it’s a very strange and poorly-thought-out concept for a set. It appears to be one big box set with the first seasons, and only the first seasons, of all the hit Norman Lear shows that Sony owns — All in the Family, Good Times, Maude, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, One Day at a Time, Mary Hartman.