Someone around here had posted opening week TNG sales totals, overall, and it simply wasn't moving that many units.
Where? And from what source? And relative to what (i.e. other television series, single-disc movies, etc.)?
Without statistics to back it up, I'll take the "selling very strong" with a grain of salt. No offense.
Likewise, without statistics to back it up, shouldn't we take speculation that TNG-R "bombed" or "backfired" with the same gain of salt?
Which is less than a single seasons MSRP ($129.95).
MSRP is arbitrarily set by the manufacturer. It has no bearing on manufacturer profitability.
But even if they are, their going for about a third of the MSRP set by CBS. I'm not sure that is the reaction CBS was hoping for when they green-lighted the project.
Absent some contractual agreement (Minimum Advertised Price, etc.), manufacturers don't care what the retailer charges for the product. I'm oversimplifying a bit, but a retailer can post whatever price it wants on the products it sells. Car dealerships are the best example of this of course; they always post MSRP on the window sticker (and on rarer models post ADM -- Additional Dealer Markup) and leave it to the customer to negotiate the price below that if they choose. A more relevant example were the original season DVD releases of TNG; whenever I'd go to the Star Trek Experience in Vegas they'd have the same sets in the gift shop priced at MSRP collecting dust. Almost certainly nobody short of the fleeting high-roller Trekkie flush with gambling winnings bought them. That's probably the only place I've seen those sets priced at MSRP.
Of course big-box and online retailers charge much, much less, simply forgoing the profit margin MSRP might allow. Home entertainment products -- particularly new releases -- are often loss-leaders; the retailer makes very little if any money but the customer is in the store to -- hopefully -- buy higher-margin items.
CBS knows exactly what various retailers are going to charge for their products; they were not caught off-guard in the slightest by the street pricing for TNG-R on BD.
This is all pretty common knowledge; these days MSRP is typically most useful to online commenters who -- for whatever reason -- want to justify their reasons for not purchasing something or to point out "corporate greed". "Let's stick it to CBS! Who's with me?" Most will simply purchase at a price they find fair and enjoy, wait until the price drops, go to the secondary market, or simply say "No thanks." Whatever the case, CBS couldn't care less; again I'm oversimplifying somewhat but the vast majority of those unsold units are firmly in the warehouses of distributors and retailers -- not CBS.
