First I’d like to say that we all enjoy your shows, really we do. We dedicate ourselves to them. Every night we sit and watch as you feed us forty four minutes of fast pace drama. Our minds become addicted to it. After about twenty two episodes, our favorite shows end for the season and we patiently await the DVD. A few months later we are driven to our local department store anxious to purchase up your product. And boy do we pay. $50 to $60 bucks is a lot of money, maybe we get lucky and grab it up in its first week, only shelling out $40 or so.

For years you have been doing this for us, providing a season of our favorite television show in a dvd box set, and we the public were happy. We smiled, handed the nice cashier our money, and went home to relive all the thrills again. For $60 a box set, and an average of maybe 22 episodes a season we are paying roughly $2.75 an episode. Again, we can live with that, we love the show, we want it in our collection.

I wouldn’t bring this up or cause a fuss, but I just went to check on the release date of a certain upcoming DVD box set for the 2007-2008 season and I noticed something interesting. The cost is the same, the release date is the same as all the previous ones in past years, but the quantity of episodes has decreased. You want me to pay the same as I have in the past for 24 episodes, but only give me 16.

The math breaks down like this, for $60, 24 episodes cost $2.50 a piece. This is how all of your seasons past have been, sure after a year you bring the cost down to about $45, which still has the episodes costing $1.80 a pop. We do appreciate the price drop by the way. Yet now, all of you TV networks are expecting us to pay the same price for less episodes. $60 for 16 episodes is $3.75 an episode. You want us to pay a 60% increase. Thats a bit insane.

If I walked into a doughnut shop, and asked for two dozen doughnuts, handed them the five bucks, and got into my car, opened the box and only found sixteen doughnuts, frankly I’d be pretty pissed.

Reduce the cost of your box sets for this season, and accept the fact that your writer strike problem is yours, not ours. We didn’t turn down the deals, we didn’t drag out the process, its not our fault that you can’t provide the additional six or so episodes that we all missed.

Your box sets should cost $40 up front, brand new. Less episodes, less money. Thats the rule of common sense. Of course I know this will go on deaf ears. You will read it and laugh, maybe bring it up in a board meeting, put this up on the projector, and all of you will giggle your little tits off. Just know that we see how greedy you are. We see it. We are not dumb. You thinking we will happily pay more for less. That is you being dumb.

Love,

-Dan

Best part of the entire letter.

I appreciate what you're saying, but..

Essentially, once I've seen an episode of a series, I don't really need to see it again. It's kinda like reading a book.. Once you've read it, do you want to read it again?

So.. why does one want to pay for a DVD of the show?? I mean really.. there's ways of getting it on the net via BitTorrent or some other interweb source.

C'mon.. sending an email to the networks is like peeing in the ocean.

Im not going to send it to them. It was just to get it off my chest.

I reread books and rewatch TV shows all the time. Who doesn't?

Seconded. And I live on House M.D.

And Im pissed they f**ked around with the writers, I lost 6 episodes, and they still want me to pay for it?

Meh, I reread books, but never buy DVDs for a show I have already seen.

That's me too.

If you asked them, I'm guessing their answer would be "$60 a season, 24 or 16, a season is a season"
Does it suck? You bet your ass it does, but that's how they justify it.

Good post. But...stupid. Unless you're a moron, we get it.

lol

You are the best asshole Plime could ever want.

Me.

I do too, but I don't buy TV episodes, since they are so easy to find in reruns somewhere.

My only exception is Star Trek TOS and TNG. Haven't bought DVDs yet, but I do have VHS tapes.

MM...have you taken a look at the weight of a "pound" of coffee lately, a candy bar, tube of toothpaste? Everything is shrinking yet the prices remain the same or higher.

I wish I had a 20 year old coffee can to compare size with the ones today. Back in the good old days a pound of coffee was 16 oz. Lately, a "pound" can of coffee is more like 11.5 or 10.5 oz.

If you choose to buy a non-essential luxury like the box set of a TV series then you can't really whine about the price it costs.

I mean c'mon, it's not like you need it is it?

Things to whine about the price of:

Fuel
Food
Healthcare
Housing

Things not to whine about the price of:

Luxury items
Designer clothing
Champagne
Rolex watches
Dvd box sets
Star Wars action figures Diamond encrusted mobile phones

I was with you up until then.