Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
"You know how you go to a convention, and there's these old, obscure celebrities that people have barely heard of, and yet there's a crowd of people who want their autograph?" asked Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, which rents videos online. "That's how this DVD evolution is. Even the most obscure shows have followings."
"Netflix -- which mails rentals to customers' homes -- ships more than 3 million discs a week. Of those rentals, about 15 percent are television shows, Sarandos said."
"For retailers, stocking up on shows like Seinfeld and The Sopranos are "no-brainers," said Netflix's Sarandos, because the series have huge followings.
"Older shows are a bit more tricky. Netflix, for example, scoured the Internet and found a following for Pink Lady . . . and Jeff, which had only five aired episodes with guests such as Donny Osmond, Alice Cooper and Hugh Hefner. It stocks Pink Lady even though fewer than 1,000 of its more than 2 million customers have requested it. "
Meanwhile Netflix is gearing up for Seinfeld. Expecting high demand, the company is treating it like a major theatrical release. Sarandos said Seinfeld is its largest commercial purchase ever. He didn't elaborate on numbers.
Sarandos said he expects Netflix to continue to increase its television inventory over the years.
"We see no signs that this is going to slow down," he said.
I was looking forward to watching again a few of the old TV series from when I was a kid such as the brain-numbing series of "SledgeHammer."
ReplyDeleteSince I am Deaf, I was hoping that since the shows would be released on DVDs, the company would finally include closed captioning or at least the English subtitles for the shows.
To my disappointment, the studios just did a cheap job of master copying without adding the captioning track. I am still unable to watch the old shows on the new DVD format.
Jared
http://jarednevans.livejournal.com