And True Blood still has a bit of bite.
Heroes was the top TV show DVD seller for the week ending September 6, 2009, selling 296,170 units and earning an estimated $11.1 million in revenue its first week. In unit totals, that’s down from season two’s DVD set which sold 391,899 units and had estimated sales, but because season 3 had a full allotment of episodes versus season two’s strike shortened version, it costs more. That may have contributed to a decrease in unit sales, but it actually pumped up the revenue figures for this year. Last year’s first week had less revenue — $9.8 million –even though it sold more units.
Unit sales and revenue were both way up for Supernatural: its fourth season DVD set sold 238,081 units and earned an estimated $8.7 million. Last year in its first week of release the season three DVD set sold 104,979 units with estimated revenue of $4.1 million.
Two and a Half Men was next best TV show on the list selling 100,493 units with estimated revenue of $2.4 million.
House season 5 racked up another 92,909 units and $3.7 million bringing the two week totals to 344,895 units and $10.5 million.
In its first week of release season five of Desperate Housewives sold 78,085 units with $2.9 million in revenue. But that’s actually up from season four’s 64,612 units and $2.5 million in revenue in its first week of release this time last year.
In its second week of release, NCIS‘ sixth season sold another 70,537 units and $2.5 million to bring its two week total to 213,261 units and $7.6 million.
The amazing first season DVD success for True Blood continues. In its 16th week of release it added on another 62,123 units — a 12% increase from week 15, along with another $2.2 million in sales. Its sixteen week totals are 1.49 million units with estimated revenue of almost $52 million.
Meanwhile, Dexter, Smallville, One Tree Hill and Sons Of Anarchy (which just had a huge ratings uptick in its 2nd season premiere on FX) and Scrubs wind their edge towards the bottom on their way out of the top 30 weekly DVD sales chart kept at the-numbers.com.
Next week (for the week ending 9/13) lots of TV Shows, including Fringe, The Office, and…Get Smart. Harpers Island, too.
| Title | Units this Week | % Change | Total Units | Sales this Week | Total Sales | Weeks in Release |
| Heroes – Season Three | 296,170 | 296,170 | $11,103,413 | $11,103,413 | 1 | |
| Supernatural – The Complete Fourth Season | 238,081 | 238,081 | $8,670,910 | $8,670,910 | 1 | |
| Two and a Half Men – The Complete Sixth Season | 100,493 | 100,493 | $2,360,581 | $2,360,581 | 1 | |
| House, M.D. – Season Five | 92,909 | -63.10% | 344,895 | $3,702,424 | $10,503,526 | 2 |
| Desperate Housewives – The Complete Fifth Season | 78,085 | 78,085 | $2,927,407 | $2,927,407 | 1 | |
| NCIS: The Complete Sixth Season | 70,537 | -50.60% | 213,261 | $2,503,358 | $7,568,633 | 2 |
| True Blood: The Complete First Season | 62,123 | 11.90% | 1,490,665 | $2,164,987 | $51,938,565 | 16 |
| Dexter – The Complete Third Season | 57,331 | -46.10% | 461,276 | $1,989,386 | $11,127,154 | 3 |
| Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season | 55,435 | -73.10% | 261,776 | $2,022,823 | $9,552,206 | 2 |
| One Tree Hill: The Complete Sixth Season | 38,943 | -68.30% | 161,948 | $1,401,559 | $5,828,509 | 2 |
| Scrubs: The Complete Eighth Season | 34,716 | -68.30% | 144,299 | $902,269 | $3,750,331 | 2 |
| Sons of Anarchy – Season One | 31,512 | -37.00% | 171,732 | $1,008,069 | $5,493,707 | 3 |
i don’t like the change in cover art for heroes between season 1 and 2, 3
Thats two years in a row that Supernaturals initial DVD sales doubled from the previous year. And its the first time since they started these charts that Smallville wasn’t the best selling release from either the WB/UPn or the CW.
Great news that the Desperate Housewives DVD sales are up this season!
yes! great for desperate housewives
well done to hereoes. heres hoping it lasts 100 episodes
roll on desperate housewives season 6!!!!
Great news for Supernatural. It’s an awesome show that not enough people are watching.
did supernatural sell more first week then smallville? i cant remember what smallville sold, im thinking it was something liek 181k but im probably wrong, cuz i doubt supernatural would outsell smallville…. anyone know?
ryan, Supernatural did in fact outperform Smallville:
Supernatural: 238,081 units, $8,670,910
Smallville: 206,341 units, $7,529,383
Did Nielsen take away the charts for DVD sales, too?
Just wondering if these are strictly DVD sales, or also include Blu-ray? I bought Supernatural S4 (and S3 for that matter) on Blu-ray. I know the industry usually dilineates between DVD & BD when quoting sales figures.
Pete, they include Blu-ray.
Do you have Blu-ray charts too?
Julia, haha, no. But there didn’t seem like much point in reinventing the wheel from the-numbers.com. Sandro, we don’t see anything other than what’s available from the-numbers.com and it does not breakout Blu-ray sales.
Sandro, we don’t have *separate* blu-ray numbers.
Julia, “Did Nielsen take away the charts for DVD sales, too?”
No. I guess Robert decided not to include it. I’ll toss it in later today. He likes writing the prose a lot more than I do. Were it me, I’d *just* do the table
Nice to see word of mouth is spreading about Supernatural and it’s translating into DVD sales.
I’m surprised Heroes did so well considering its lackluster season.
it’s not about prose in this case, but relative comparisons, especially to previous years.
The data is already in a table on the-numbers.com. Taking out just the TV shows which were already easy to spot and putting them into a separate table doesn’t add much value.
The relative comparisons probably don’t add much value either, but that’s another story
Good for Heroes, even though its not as good as season 1 now, season 3 was an improvement over season 2. I am hopeful for the new season!
That said, I’m sure all the Heroes haters will be coming out of the woodwork soon enough….
Bill, Robert,
You can get Blu-ray numbers at:
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/high-definition-smackdown/77119-2009-blu-ray-sales-metrics-stats-nielsen-videoscan-hmm-charts-ratios-bestsellers-etc-61.html
They break them down typically on Wed/Thurs.
yay! the DVD sales for Heroes prove it’s still a popular show. A lot of people I know just wait for the DVD to come out so they don’t have to wait a week for every episode.
Nice to hear about Supernatural’s DVD sales.
What about Criminal Minds? Every single time I tried to preorder they were always sold out-so that must be good for something.
DD, Criminal Minds DVD went on sale the week of Sept. 8, look for its data in next week’s post.
Yeah Supernatural! Glad to see good things for the show.
Robert- soled=sold Don’t you just hate spell check?
Thanks for all your hard work.
Oh, that’s what I was going to fix. I knew I had spotted something somewhere but forgot where it was.
Fillet of soled…
Polly!!!! We missed you, the TV season must be kicking into gear finally
Thanks Robert!! Hope this season has something to offer over last season (besides Fringe).
Thanks for the highlight on True Blood, that was worth checking out.
As to Supernatural outselling Smallville, I have purchased every season of both, but S8 of Smallville was so horrible that I skipped it. I wonder if others felt the same as me.
Good for Heroes Season 3. I haven’t bought it yet though, I’m a poor college student
Stephan – Yes, I felt the same. I bought Supernatural but I will wait to buy Smallville until it lowers in price, maybe around Christmas, if not, I can wait.
Awesome news for Supernatural! YaY!
I don’t undertsand Desperate Housewives numbers !
Only 78,085 units sold but 15 million people watch it on ABC
Supernatural sold 238,081 units for 3 million people on CW
I really don’t understand
Ugly, there are many dynamics involved, but the only one easily quantified is “price”. The Supernatural DVDs are ~$10-$12 cheaper than Desperate Housewives. How much of a factor that plays, with the difference in sales though I cannot quantify.
Thanks Robert.
Grey’s Anatomy DVDs are as expensive as Desperate Housewives. Their numbers (season 5) should be available in two weeks. I’m curious…
Good for heroes, But Dang True Blood is STILL keeping on and on…I suspect AMAZING numers to come around christmas!!!
Sonny With a Chance sales, please? It’s the first dvd from the serie, I would love to know.
ummmmmm Stephan, as an avid watcher of both smallville since season1, season 8 was by far the best and most intense season of the series! and im sure im not the only one who thinks the same.
People need to remember Smallville is a big Blu-ray draw (which is not included in the above chart) and has also had two pretty successful re-run slots throughout the summer.
Dillan, Blu-ray sales are included in the above list. We don’t have separate numbers for Blu-ray though.
Ryan, you’re not the only one.
On Kryptonsite, Season 8 was voted the Best Season with 32% of the vote, thrashing second-place Season 4 which had 15% of the vote.
Cool, my mistake Bill!
I think the fact Smallville Season 8 isn’t especially discounted may also have something to do with the okay-but-could-be-better sales.
good news for supernatural. that’s a hit! cw is going to gain more from supernatural than gossip crap! or 9021crap or melrose crap!
Dexter is the best show on television.
There was a recent article on this site suggesting House and NCIS dvd sets went up in sales because of repeats on cable. According to the article, House Season 5 improved over its prior set’s sales going from 167k units sold to 223k units and improving revenue from $5.5million last year to over $6 million this year. NCIS Season 6 actually doubled both sales and revenue from 54,991 units to 126,506 until and sales of $2.11 million to $4.49 million.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/09/heavy-rotation-on-usa-network-helpingncis-house-dvd-sales/26516#more-26516
But, I think there must be something bigger going on in the market for tv on dvd sales.
True Blood Season 1 sales are incredible. They’ve sold 1.49 million units with estimated revenue of almost $52 million. And look at Supernatural. It’s not a new show and it isn’t on heavy rotation on cable, yet Supernatural’s Fourth season DVD set debut doubled sales from 104,979 units last year to 238,081 units this year and doubled its sales from $4.1 million to an estimated $8.7 million.
Earlier this year, I had read an article predicting really poor DVD sales due to the bad economy so it’s funny to see the DOUBLING of dvd sales for some shows or record breaking sales instead. I haven’t looked at other shows’ sales but those really stood out to me bc doubling sales is a big increase in a bad economy. It’s really hard for me to figure out why sales are so great. I’m wondering if the bad economy is making people stay home more and that’s why they’re buying so many tv shows on dvd and this is part of a bigger trend. I don’t know if there are other tv shows on dvd that fit this profile of significant increases from last year in sales. If so, the people predicting bad dvd sales may have missed that people will still want entertainment and they may figure it will end up being cheaper to buy tv shows on dvd rather than going out.
What crazy masochists want to own Heroes season 3? Yikes.
CW’s Supernatural Season 4
Cant say enough.. The acting, writing and effects were incredible. I am so happy for J2 and the crew to see those kind of numbers. I pre-ordered mine and Ive never even considered doing that for any other show.
Thanks to this site too for supplying this type of information!