The amazing story of success for the first season of True Blood on DVD continues. For the week ending August 16, 2009, True Blood was the top selling TV show DVD. It was a slow week without many new releases, but still, True Blood raked in an additional $1.59 million and is approaching $46 million in sales.
On a revenue basis True Blood is the 11th best selling DVD of the season. The only other TV show in the top 50 is 24, which is now #50 (and falling, and the list we see ends at 50, so…) with $18.184 million in sales.
90210’s first season DVD was released during the week , but did not make the top 30 we see. But Mad Men, after falling off the list for a few weeks made a comeback and had the week’s second best sales for a TV show with $1.17 million.
Battlestar Galactica is running out of steam as far as staying on the list we see, but was still on the list with about $1.1 million in weekly sales. Last week’s top TV show DVD, The Flight of the Conchords – The Complete Second Season hung around for an additional $925K.
On a unit basis, Conchords was the week’s best selling TV show DVD, but it costs less than the other DVDs. Conchords is currently $19.49 on Amazon, True Blood has a list price of $60, though Amazon is selling it for $34.99 and Mad Men lists at $50 and is going for $32.99 on Amazon.
Family Guy – Volume 7 was also back on the list with $1.015 million in sales.
US TV Show DVD Sales for Week Ending August 16, 2009:
| Title | Units this week | %Change | Total Units | Sales this week | Total Sales | Weeks in Release |
| True Blood: The Complete First Season | 44,138 | -11.00% | 1,314,604 | $1,594,706 | $45,745,660 | 13 |
| Mad Men: Season 2 | 35,582 | -.-% | 190,255 | $1,173,850 | $6,347,536 | 5 |
| Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5 | 34,872 | -39.80% | 266,410 | $1,098,119 | $8,451,739 | 3 |
| Family Guy – Volume 7 | 46,311 | -.-% | 521,308 | $1,015,137 | $13,099,147 | 9 |
| Flight of The Conchords: The Complete Second Season | 47,465 | -56.40% | 156,443 | $925,093 | $3,049,074 | 2 |
You can see past weekly lists of TV Show DVD Sales numbers here.
Source: the-numbers.com
It looks like there just aren’t very many people buying TV shows on DVD at all right now (True Blood being the obvious exception). I wonder if the market will pick up as more shows are released in the next month or two, or if this is indicative of consumers simply being less interested/less able to afford TV shows than they were in the past.
I really haven’t paid any attention to the new 90210, so I don’t know what sort of expectations there were for it’s release, but to not even make the Top 30 can’t be making that studio happy.
Out of curiosity, I checked it’s current rank at Amazon and right now it’s “#433 in Movies & TV”.
If you look at Amazon’s bestsellers in Movie & TV, it’s dominated by TV shows (especially pre-orders). As of right now, the top 5 selling DVDs are:
1. House – Season 5
2. Dexter – Season 3
3. NCIS – Season 6
4. True Blood – Season 1
5. Smallville – Season 8
The second season of True Blood is already #25 and there isn’t even a release date yet.
Though to be fair, I don’t think Amazon is all that reliable in showing how well a DVD will fair overall. Dollhouse was in the top 100 for weeks (it peaked in the top 10) and when those numbers were factored into total first week sales, it was only about 60,000 units. And this week’s top-selling DVD (the film 17 Again) has only been in Amazon’s top 100 for 20 days – yet it still sold 680,000 units in its first week.
I’m not sold on Amazon as being a good indicator of how well a show’s dvd sales are.
People get nuts over it, reporting as a victory the fact that their favorite show climbed from #9 to #5 on the Amazon ranking. But the numbers of the dvd sold on Amazon are so small compared to total DVD’s selling, that being #5 or #9 doesn’t make such a difference.
Last year I religiously checked Amazon everyday to see the difference btw the CDs sold there and their final position on Billboard. Sometimes it was big, but because the number of them sold through amazon was tiny.
No “Dollhouse” on the list again??
SHOCKING!
Maybe the reason dvd tv sets are having slow sales is because you can watch any episode for free on the internet. Why Pay when its Free?
Are the sales low for the other shows? Or is it just that True Blood is eclipsing the others? True Blood aside, how are TV show dvd sales doing compared to last year (or the year before, considering last year had the writers strike).
Yep! Dollhouse is sure cleaning house (well the basement…)
Just Tuned in, you’re welcome to comb through the-numbers.com and draw your own conclusions or read previous entries here. A lot of last seasons DVDs will be coming out over the next few weeks so there will be more to compare. But, briefly True Blood is a big success rather than other shows sucking wind. True Blood is in the upper stratosphere of DVD sales now, compared to this year, last year, the year before or before the writers strike. It’s ahead of the last season of Sopranos in the stratosphere of LOST and approaching Heroes season one (that did about $61 million in 2007) which was a huge DVD success.
Amazon is reliable for DVD shows when the box sets are in the top 10 at amazon for more than a couple weeks. True Blood was high on that list for almost 2 months. And the second season is already climbing and it’s not even over yet! Maybe they’ll rush it out for X-Mas.
Yo Robert, O Master of the Numbers. Do you by chance have numbers on DVD sales for Heroes season 2? Cause if it’s anywhere near season 1 numbers that may explain why it’s still on the air.
LG, you can scroll through and find that info on The-Numbers.com. It is some work,to track it down but better for you to do the hunting and pecking(since you want the info) than me
by memory it didn’t do NEARLY as well as season 1, but, still better than many show. And season 3 is relased in a week or so, so in a few weeks we’ll have data on that too.
Dollhouse mentioned! Engage battle shields now!
If I were to remain on task, I would say True Blood is a phenomeon due to adults, like myself, who want to shove tween Twilight fans faces into asphalt.
True Blood definitely gets a boost from all of the people who don’t have HBO. Most of the other shows aren’t on a premium cable channel. Then you have people who didn’t have HBO in season 1 who bought the DVD set to play catch up for season 2. With 24 you have die hards that love watching the show exclusively on DVD to make their viewing more intense.
Just Tuned In:
Heroes – Season One..1,597,185…$61,849,386….8/28/2007
Heroes – Season Two….881,964…$22,007,198….8/26/2008
These are the year list data, but likely are close to the complete sales.
Mad Men Season 2 peeks back onto the list, that’s kinda impressive. And I’m anything but a MacFarlane-ite, but it must be admitted, that magnificent bastard sells a lot of DVDs.
But it’s clearly the summer doldrums. You only have to sell 29,000 units to make the list this week.
Where can I find out how much 90210 dvd sales made??
Mark,you’d have to buy the data from Videoscan or ask someone who knows at the appropriate division of Warner Bros. The-numbers.com also might have more info than it makes available, but if they do you’d need to be a subscriber to see it.
Well, in a way, it’s not that unexpected.
People can watch 24, Dollhouse, Family Guy etc. for free all year long (and if you count the repeats…all year long with double servings).
True Blood is on HBO. Not everyone can afford HBO (though, it seems that everyone who can, is watching True Blood right now :p), so the only solution to watch a higly-hyped and amazingly marketed series is through your DVD/BluRay player.
Add to that the fact the True Blood is a genuinely great show, the Vampire-hype and the desire to own the episodes (so you can drool over Sookie or Jason – depending on what you prefer :p) and it makes perfect sense that True Blood is doing so good.
Nonetheless, this is a stunning performance for a TV show whose premier attracted roughly 1,5 million people.
Again though, with True Blood being the raw gem that it is, it’s understandable.
Alan Ball deserves a huge applause (and I’m betting all my money that HBO is REALLY loving him right about now)
I’d go even farther than Guybrush.
I haven’t started watching True Blood yet, but I was gonna say: as successful as Alan Ball is, why isn’t he a household name at this point? True Blood, Six Feet Under, American Beauty, without a serious misstep in between. What does a guy have to do in this business for demi-god status?
Please renew Flight of the Conchords HBO!
@Izkid I read that HBO is ready to start filming season 3 of Conchords. They’re just waiting for the boys to write the songs. Can’t recall where I read it…
I think it’s comical that some places like best buy try to sell box sets for $35-$60 while places like amazon/target have them for $15-$25.
The first season of one of my all time favourites, Thirtysomething, was released yesterday on DVD, for the first time ever. I wonder how it will do in the next couple of weeks. It has a nice package, with three slim plastic DVD sets and a booklets with critical articles and an episode guide.
@ BIG DADDY,
Oh yeah! Several months ago the Borders bookstore in my area was trying to reduce it’s inventory of DVD’s by having a huge sale. By the end of the sale they had many titles marked down 50% off, at which point almost all of them were STILL more expensive then what Amazon charges for the same titles.
I understand that some people want to purchase something and have it immediately, but I can wait a few days to buy a show from Amazon for $19.99 or $24.99 rather than the MSRP of $49.99, $59.99 or even $69.99.
It looks like Dexter for next week…
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8b95ac51de67e1962166b5ad3624fe5e
Thanks Robert!