1. TB had its lowest week yet at about 20,000 units.

2. In June, The Numbers revised all sales figures down 10 to 20%. My gut feeling is that was the point where Blu Ray sales were factored out.

3. I love these posts. These and the Renew/Cancel are the reasons I come here.

No they didn’t.The-numbers posted 62,226 units for DH.Just like I said.

Link for proof.

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/2009/20090802.php

@Max – I don’t understand these % numbers, or why Blu Ray matters in regards to this chart. This chart is DVD numbers, not Blu Ray. Dollhouse sold more DVD copies in its first week than TSCC. Done.

@J

From the-numbers, as reposted here at TVBN:

Dollhouse – Season One 67,226

TSCC outsold Dollhouse by at least 20 000 units overall.

Actually it didnt.

TSCC-64,966
DH-62,226

1) Heroes has been out longer than Fringe, by 1 week, that’s some of its sales
2) Heroes budget is over 4 million an episode. I don’t know Fringe’s but I seriously doubt it’s that high, Heroes is very much the exception.
3) Those DVD sales keep falling season by season. It over 1 million DVDs (who knows how many Blu-Ray) for its first season.

You know, I gotta say, it does seem that certain networks do get better DVD sales then others. CBS shows get anywhere from 10 to 20 million viewers for their programs yet shows like the Mentalist, Criminal Minds, even NCIS doesn’t sell well (200k DVD units, it’s not available in Blu-Ray) and it has 20 million viewers for its premiere. Same thing with ABC. Seems like FOX, NBC, and Cable networks get a lot more DVD buys for fewer viewers.

Until then, complaining about this list is a waste of everyone’s time.

For now, I still think the numbers from the the-numbers serve as a very good proxy of relative TV Show DVD sales. True Blood is still the best selling TV Show DVD by a LONG shot so far this year, and the Office is still a very distant second. For our purposes, the relative info is good enough. I’m sorry that it isn’t for you personally, but I also know that you will continue to comb through various different lists. Again, I suggest you blog about it! You have much more passion about the subject matter than we do.

Digging around to figure out what’s available in Blu-ray isn’t worth the effort. In fact, my opinion is that this entire post isn’t worth the effort vs. the traffic it generates, but it Robert likes posting it.

Then might I suggest you simply note which titles are also available in Blu-Ray and which are not?

Edit: there is VERY little value to us in providing this data. It’s NOT very well read on our site. It could be that The-Numbers will need to add Blu*Ray as it becomes an increasingly important part of sales. But for us, it’s doing what we’re doing vs. not doing it at all. Adding the complexity of sorting through various different lists isn’t worth it for us.

I wanted to clarify though – I think it’s reasonable to want to see total sales including Blu*Ray but unless or until there is a very simple way for us to do that, it’s not something we’re going to worry about.

But you’re going to have to do something to incorporate Blu-Ray sales of DVD sets, especially as time passes. What, I don’t know, unless you want to use percentages from another chart, like I did.

By the way, we NEVER thought those estimates from The-Numbers were anything but estimates.

It’s not about prospects for renewal. Show’s done and gone. But a lot of people, myself included, and more importantly, YOU TWO, thought that the data represented in that chart is an estimate of total sales. It’s not, it’s DVD sales without Blu-Ray. You want to know why I made the same mistake? Because the first time I got this information was when I came to your site, that’s why. And it’s very easy to correct: just say the sales don’t include Blu-ray.

And, given the increasing size of Blu-ray sales in the current market, it’s very important to note this, especially when you have items that have a large proportion of Blu-Ray sales, like movies and some DVD sets. Forget TSCC, how about Fringe, whose Blu-Ray sales are about 20%? That means its total sales aren’t about 200,000, they’re actually about 250,000. Or how about Heroes, who’s Blu-Ray sales are 10-13%, meaning its total sales aren’t 500,000 but 550,000 to 575,000. And True Blood goes up even further, with Blu-Ray sales between 10 and 20% every week, meaining it actually has 1.8-1.9 million in total sales, not 1.58.

Moreover, several of the sets sold on that list, like Grey’s Anatomy, aren’t available in Blu-Ray format. It makes a difference in units and revenue, especially since Blu-Ray sets cost more.

The numbers are not crap, they just aren’t all inclusive. They still are highly indicative of the TV Show DVD sales.

Seriously, why post values you know are incorrect ? You are better off just linking to sites if you know the numbers are crap.

You have a huge interest here, I suggest *you* blog on it! If you’re regularly producing the best, most comprehensive TV Show DVD sales analysis, we’ll happily link to it. But for our purposes, this is still just fine. If it’s not fine for you, that’s OK with me.

The norm for a series depends upon the network, really. True Blood jumps from 10 to 20% of sales through Blu-Ray depending upon the week, Heroes is at 12-13%, FOX series sell at about 15-20%. But those are the BIGGEST movers. Most series sell at about 5-10%. TSCC’s rate is what you see for new movie releases these days. House, Desperate Housewives, 2 and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle don’t have a Blu-Ray release, so the numbers you’re seeing on this chart actually do account for total sales.

And if you still don’t believe me that The-numbers.com is just DVD sales, not Blu-Ray, then compare these 2 charts. It’s the week of a release of Gladiator and Braveheart on Blu-Ray.
The-Numbers.com :
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/2009/20090906.php
Videoscan:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/top-sellers/top-20-sellers-week-ended-9609

Notice how those two movies don’t even make the Numbers.com list, yet they’re at 7th and 8th respectively with an INDEX value of 37 and 31.66 respectively. That would correspond to sales of 100 to 130k on The-numbers.com chart IF IT WAS TOTAL SALES. So why aren’t they present?

Simple. According to Nielsen, 96-97% of their sales were Blu-Ray. So are we all agreed then? The-numbers.com is just DVD sales without Blu-Ray?

No one noticed that Greys Season 5 did not hit Blu-ray this year? Disney delayed it because Season 4 sold so poorly due to it not being a gamer-type series.

1) Divide the Total revenue by units sold, you get the approximate sale value of the unit. For TSCC, that’s $36.48 dollars, and the listed price for the REGULAR DVD set is 34-38 dollars online and at retail outlets. The Blu-Ray price is anywhere from 45-50 dollars.
2) I emailed The-numbers.com and asked myself, and they told me just what I posted, it’s DVD sets only no Blu-Ray. Want a copy of their reply?

Robert, I agree, you shouldn’t post the other charts INDEX values as there’s no hard data (percents/rankings don’t count). I do think the Blu-Ray percentage of sales might be useful to consider though, especially since not all DVD sets come in that format. Just a thought. One caveat, in addition to it being another percentage value, is that the other charts only go to #20 on their lists, not #30 like this one.

But I think it is worthwhile to mention if a particular TV set has WAY above average BluRay sales, which TSCC Season 2 does. This isn’t a joke, check the charts over at homemediamagazine.com yourself. Most TV series have Blu-Ray sales of 10% or lower from their total. FOX sets tend to be the exception, as both Dollhouse and Fringe had Blu-Ray sales of 20% of their totals. And, as I noted previously, this rate tends to stay fairly constant over time with movies and TV series.

Indeed, there are differences between $ and unit sales, and the units weekly default list is sorted by units, not revenue. I wish it were easy to sort both ways (as you can with their yearly indexes).

I’m pretty sure it tracks both.

Julia, I agree, TSCC sales aren’t strong, they’re really average when you factor Blu-Ray in (to about 100k all told). If you check the Nielsen Videoscan chart, you’ll find that Grey’s Anatomy, 30 Rock, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia aren’t offered in Blu-Ray, they’re DVD only. The Office Season 5 only had 5% of sales this week through Blu-Ray, last week it was 4% and the first week it was 6% (I’m using the Videoscan charts to get this numbers). Crank 2 had Blu-Ray sales of 17, 18 and 20% for it’s weeks on the charts.

The point? Blu-Ray percentages stay pretty constant as time passes. TSCC is going to have Blu-Ray sales of about 30-35% for the next few weeks, and that results in a lower number on the The-numbers.com chart. Why? Because this chart only tracks DVD sales.

It is excellent. And I can rewatch episodes and appreciate something new in every scene.

a joy.

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.

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.

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)

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.