Dollhouse DVD sales

[Colin Xavier]

And the show's renewal proves that unlikely things can happen. There's no need to say "Well, given this past evidence, we can make such-and-such an assumption about the future."

Why not? Making a reasonable guess on how a product will do based on past performance isn't unreasonable.

For example American Idol will be still be the No. 1 rated series next season and the CSI shows will continue to do well for CBS. These assumptions are not set in stone but will probably come true.

 

[Christopher]

^It's not reasonable to state a guess as though it's a given. It's reasonable to know that guesses and predictions are often wrong. It's reasonable to know that speculations are not data.

Besides, the "reasonable" prediction everyone was making a few months ago was that Dollhouse would be cancelled by now. In this case, of all cases, it should be obvious how unwise it is to speak of a "reasonable" guess as though it were an inevitable truth.

 

[Hermiod]

A large part of the reason Dollhouse was renewed is because Whedon made "Epitaph One" for half the cost of a regular episode by shooting on digital video and using other shortcuts. That demonstrated that maybe he could bring in a whole season for a greatly reduced budget. The budget could be cut more by abandoning the limited-commercials format of the first season and dropping the length from 50-plus minutes to the more conventional 42. If it doesn't cost as much to make, that means its ratings don't need to be as high to break even, so it's feasible to keep it around longer. (Also more commercial time means more income for the network.)

There's a potential problem there, though. Is there not the possibility that more commercials means more people will DVR it and thus lower the overall number of people who watch the show live ?

Some of the most expensive advertising slots on British television are at roughly 4:03pm on a Sunday on Sky Sports 1. Why ? Because that week's featured Premier League match kicks off at 4:05pm.

Those slots are always filled with ads for high end products - HDTVs, for instance, and often one company will buy the entire two minutes. It's all because people don't want to go anywhere for that short break between the teams lining up and kick-off.

 

[AviTrek]

A large part of the reason Dollhouse was renewed is because Whedon made "Epitaph One" for half the cost of a regular episode by shooting on digital video and using other shortcuts. That demonstrated that maybe he could bring in a whole season for a greatly reduced budget. The budget could be cut more by abandoning the limited-commercials format of the first season and dropping the length from 50-plus minutes to the more conventional 42. If it doesn't cost as much to make, that means its ratings don't need to be as high to break even, so it's feasible to keep it around longer. (Also more commercial time means more income for the network.)

There's a potential problem there, though. Is there not the possibility that more commercials means more people will DVR it and thus lower the overall number of people who watch the show live ?

Some of the most expensive advertising slots on British television are at roughly 4:03pm on a Sunday on Sky Sports 1. Why ? Because that week's featured Premier League match kicks off at 4:05pm.

Those slots are always filled with ads for high end products - HDTVs, for instance, and often one company will buy the entire two minutes. It's all because people don't want to go anywhere for that short break between the teams lining up and kick-off.

And Fox charged more for Dollhouse ads because there were less total ads per episode. The extended time wasn't a gift to Dollhouse(and Fringe), it was an experiment to see if fewer ads at a higher rate could make more money then the standard ad time/rates. Going back to a typical ad approach does not given Dollhouse more money to work with, just what Fox expected to begin with.

 

[Christopher]

There's a potential problem there, though. Is there not the possibility that more commercials means more people will DVR it and thus lower the overall number of people who watch the show live ?

I'm not going to pretend I know the answer to that, because it hasn't happened yet and there's no way to know for sure. There are all sorts of possibilities, but that's all they are -- possibilities. We never know what the future will hold. We can just try to assess which course of action offers the greatest odds of a positive outcome, based on current information. No network executive ever knows in advance whether a show will succeed. What they know is how much a show will cost and how much they can convince advertisers to pay for it. If the former is reasonably low compared to the latter, they're more likely to renew the show. I was only saying that the budget reduction was a factor in the show's renewal. I wasn't saying it guarantees success, since it would be foolish to say that either success or failure is guaranteed.

 

[Colin Xavier]

^It's not reasonable to state a guess as though it's a given. It's reasonable to know that guesses and predictions are often wrong. It's reasonable to know that speculations are not data.

Besides, the "reasonable" prediction everyone was making a few months ago was that Dollhouse would be cancelled by now. In this case, of all cases, it should be obvious how unwise it is to speak of a "reasonable" guess as though it were an inevitable truth.

I did not state my guess as a given fact. Where did I do that? I simply said that these DVD sales number will not warrant a season three. It may end up being renewed due to TV ratings but that's unlikely because of a number of reasons...

1. It doesn't have a similar sci-fi show as a lead in anymore.
2. It's lead in show is now a half hour sitcom.
3. Its ratings were going down throughout its first season, more and more people were not watching anymore.

 

[Christopher]

I did not state my guess as a given fact. Where did I do that? I simply said that these DVD sales number will not warrant a season three.

But the very way that statement is constructed is predicated on the implicit assumption that the actual on-air ratings will not change. What I found bizarre was the notion of correlating a show's renewal chances directly with its DVD sales, as if on-air ratings were not a factor.

 

[Colin Xavier]

I did not state my guess as a given fact. Where did I do that? I simply said that these DVD sales number will not warrant a season three.

But the very way that statement is constructed is predicated on the implicit assumption that the actual on-air ratings will not change. What I found bizarre was the notion of correlating a show's renewal chances directly with its DVD sales, as if on-air ratings were not a factor.

I think its unlikely for the show to gain viewers because unfortunately it has been losing viewers since the start.

The show started with 4.3 million live viewers and ended with 2.75 million for the finale and that's a bad drop. These aren't numbers which guarantee renewal and is extremely discouraging to fans.

But with good DVD sales and slight improvement in the ratings then there is a good chance of a third season based on opinions shared by FOX execs

 

[AviTrek]

I did not state my guess as a given fact. Where did I do that? I simply said that these DVD sales number will not warrant a season three.

But the very way that statement is constructed is predicated on the implicit assumption that the actual on-air ratings will not change. What I found bizarre was the notion of correlating a show's renewal chances directly with its DVD sales, as if on-air ratings were not a factor.

Renewal chances are correlated to DVD sales. TV Ratings may be more strongly correlated, but that does change the correlation between DVD sales and renewal.

To put it another way, the partial derivative of renewal chances with respect to DVD sales is a positive number thought it is less than the partial derivative with respect to nielsen ratings.