These numbers are sales estimates via The-Numbers.com and do not include Blu*Ray sales.
For the week ending September 27, 2009 the second week of release for the Grey's Anatomy's fifth-season DVD set again led all TV Show DVD sales for the week with an additional 84,080 units and $3.043 million in revenue. Grey's two week totalks are now 343,169 units and $12.52 million in revenue.
The first week of release for the third season of 30 Rock was next with 83,902 units and $2.64 million in sales.
The third week of release for The Office season five brought an additional 72,111 units and $2.38 million. The three week total is 660,659 units and $22.27 million.
Next up was the first week of release of season two, the final season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, with 64,966 units and $2.38 million in sales. That's slightly down in units from the first week sales of season one, when it sold 71,279 units. Season one had far less revenue the first week of sales with $1.35 million, but it had a much lower unit cost because it only contained nine episodes.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia season four sold another 63,358 units and $1.71 million in its second week on the charts. It now has sold 264,764 units with $6.77 million in revenue.
The second week of release for The Big Bang Theories second season sold another 57,939 units and $1.68 million for a two week total of 214,023 units and $6.2 million in sales.
The first season of Castle debuted with 53,294 units and $1.39 million in sales.
In its fourth week of release, Heroes season three added another 52,282 units and $1.92 million for a four week total of 478,202 units and $18.67 million in sales.
The first season of The Mentalist sold 44,005 units in its first week for $1.63 million.
Fringe sold 37,817 more units for an additional $1.51 million in its third week. Its three week total is 200,897 units and $7.52 million in sales.
Mad Men clawed its way back on the list selling an additional 35,609 Units for $704,346 in revenue. Its eleven week totals are 295,810 units for $9.07 million.
For the first time in a long while, the first season of True Blood was not among the top 30 we see. But you can still track its totals on the annual top 50 list since its still the ninth best selling DVD this year (all DVDs, including movies) and since its release on May 19, 2009, it has sold over 1.6 million units for $55,670,381 in revenue. Its closest competitor for now among its TV show brethren is The Office season five (see above).
| Title | Units this Week | % Change | Total Units | Sales this Week | Total Sales | Weeks in Release |
| Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Fifth Season | 84,080 | -67.50% | 343,169 | $3,043,696 | $12,515,990 | 2 |
| 30 Rock: Season Three | 83,902 | 83,902 | $2,642,074 | $2,642,074 | 1 | |
| The Office - Season Five | 72,111 | -51.90% | 660,659 | $2,378,942 | $22,274,364 | 3 |
| Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season | 64,966 | 64,966 | $2,370,609 | $2,370,609 | 1 | |
| It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 4 | 63,358 | -68.50% | 264,764 | $1,705,597 | $6,772,972 | 2 |
| The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Second Season | 57,939 | -62.90% | 214,023 | $1,679,652 | $6,204,527 | 2 |
| Castle: The Complete First Season | 53,294 | 53,294 | $1,385,111 | $1,385,111 | 1 | |
| Heroes - Season Three | 52,282 | 4.20% | 499,561 | $1,915,090 | $18,673,044 | 4 |
| Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom | 51,508 | 51,508 | $772,105 | $772,105 | 1 | |
| The Mentalist: The Complete First Season | 44,005 | 44,005 | $1,627,745 | $1,627,745 | 1 | |
| Fringe: The Complete First Season | 37,187 | -29.00% | 200,897 | $1,505,702 | $7,518,767 | 3 |
| Mad Men: Season 2 | 35,609 | 295,810 | $704,346 | $9,068,857 | 11 |
You can see past weekly lists of TV Show DVD Sales numbers here.
Source: the-numbers.com
Yet again I am mystified by the tastes of the majority of Americans.
I’m mystified that people buy DVD sets of contemporary TV shows in the first place.
It seems odd that Castle beat The Mentalist in first week DVD sales
when (according to the ratings) The Mentalist is far more popular. I personally prefer Castle but I’m supposedly in the minority. Oh well, good for Castle – hope it’s allowed a full season.
dvikib, viewing audience size and DVD sales are far from correlated. True Blood has by far the most DVD sales of any TV show this year, and its audience size, certainly before this season, was smaller than any non-CW show on broadcast television.
I think a lot of times people buy DVD sets of shows they’ve heard good things about but haven’t watched so they can kind of catch up on what others are talking about O.o
There’s not always a correlation between how many people watch a show and how many are willing to pay the money to purchase it.
For example, I have heard that Two & A Half Men does not sell nearly that well when compared to how robust it’s ratings are. While quite a large number of the fans of a show like BSG seem to also want to add it to their collections.
why is The Big Bang Theory being referred to as “The Big Bang Theories”?
@Jesse that is true..i bought the BSG series set b/c of all the good things everyone said about it..i was not disappointed!
@ Jessie,
I don’t know if a lot of people buy DVD sets in order to try out a show, but I often have.
Shows that I’ve purchased without having seen any episodes have included “The 4400″, “Angel”, “Babylon 5″, “Big Bang Theory”, “Buffy”, “Burn Notice”, “Crusade”, “Dead Like Me”, “Deadwood”, “Entourage”, “Extras”, “Friday Night Lights”, “Jeremiah”, “Six Feet Under”, “Sliders”, “Undeclared”, “Veronica Mars”, “The Wire” and “Wonderfalls”. And I have the complete “Farscape” Set on order, so I will try that one out soon too.
ditto to the big bang theory and friday night lights
plus fnl was dirt cheap…i got it for 10$ hah!
I got FNL S1 & 2 for $13.00 each. Not bad, but not quite as good, darn it! lol.
I found TBBT S1 for I think $14.00. That’s the lowest that I’ve seen that one.
AO says:
“Shows that I’ve purchased without having seen any episodes have included ‘The 4400′, ‘Angel’, ‘Babylon 5′, ‘Big Bang Theory’, ‘Buffy’, ‘Burn Notice’, ‘Crusade’, ‘Dead Like Me’, ‘Deadwood’, ‘Entourage’, ‘Extras’, ‘Friday Night Lights’, ‘Jeremiah’, ‘Six Feet Under’, ‘Sliders’, ‘Undeclared’, ‘Veronica Mars’, ‘The Wire’ and ‘Wonderfalls’. And I have the complete ‘Farscape’ Set on order, so I will try that one out soon too.”
In that case, I’d point out that Criterion has reissued “Berlin Alexanderplatz.”
Thanks for the suggestion Boris. I’ll look into it.
I bought the first season of TSCC on DVD, but I’m not sure I’ll buy season two. Just easier to watch the episodes on my hard drive. But maybe the extras might be worth it. Of course, I need to find some change in my pocket first…
Show I’m now hot for is Hustle, having watched two episodes of season five. Unfortunately, with my Internet access curtailed, and the TV site I usually get downloads from having screwed up the Hustle downloads, it may be a while before I can get the episodes from somewhere.
I agree @Jesse, I bought Weeds Season one and True Blood Season One without ever seeing an episode. They’re shows I really enjoy now.
As for the Office and 30 Rock, these are shows I can watch over and over again, so I always buy them.
Yeah, why is The Big Bang Theory referred to as “The Big Bang Theories”, it should be “The Big Bang Theory’s…”
I’d like to see separated data for Blu-Ray only
Can’t add lots of insight but I can note that I never buy series to try them out. (we now have access to a good library and that is what that is for).
The last two DVD sets that came into my house (via purchase) were Ally McBeal and Grey’s Anatomy, and before that, Scrubs and House (whichever were their latest seasons)
Actually guys, that’s just DVD sales on that chart. It excludes Blu-Ray. According the Nielsen Videoscan Chart (link:http://www.homemediamagazine.com/top-sellers/top-20-sellers-week-ended-92709)
TSCC is number 9, yes, there’s no hard data, but if you look at the Percent Sales you’ll see that 33% of its units were Blu-Ray. The-numbers.com chart excludes this. It’s also why the Videoscan chart and this chart don’t add up: Videoscan adds in Blu-ray sales. And that’s not the only difference: Grey’s Anatomy is at #17 on the sellers list not #7 on The-numbers.com, Castle is at #14 not #17, and the list goes on.
Why the discrepency? The-numbers.com is the same kind of chart as Videoscan, its estimated sales, not actual sales. The difference is, The-numbers.com reports its estimated figures, Videoscan and Rentrak (link: http://www.videobusiness.com/index.asp?layout=marketData&content=topdvdsellers) just reports everything as a percent value of the top seller (that’s what the INDEX value means). You’ll also note that the Rentrak list also differs substantially from Videoscan and The-numbers.com, and it’s just a listing of the DVD sales, not Blu-ray.
Which is precisely why you TVBTN guys should just look at the estimates on The-numbers.com. I would keep an eye on the Videoscan list for one reason though: it gives you a percent value of sales through Blu-Ray. TSCC’s Season 2 Blu-Ray sales are quite high at 33%, which means that the total sales in the first week are really about 100,000 by The-numbers.com chart (65k DVD sales + 35k Blu-ray sales, yes I rounded off).
But no one here should think this as an accurate estimate by itself. Just compare the RENTRAK numbers for TSCC, which says it’s INDEX value is 16.8% of Wolverine’s DVD sales. Well, if The-numbers.com estimate is accurate, that’s 16.8% of about 600,000 DVDs, or about 105,000. My oh my, that’s a big difference from The-numbers.com isn’t it? And that’s just one case, you can do this with any of the TV series on this list and come up with different numbers, and they will differ wildly. That’s because each of these charts, Rentrak, Videoscan, The-numbers.com, tracks different retail outlets. They get their data from different sources. It’s not a repeat measurement of the same source. Videoscan doesn’t track Walmart, for example, and I believe Rentrak does.
TSCC seems to be selling well.
I hope the fans keep buying the DVDs and Blurays because it will bring more incentives for the WB and Halcylon (or whoever is with the rights of Terminator in the future) to do a continuation of the series in a direct-to-DVD movie.