"In the last three years, the popularity of whole seasons of television shows on DVD has exploded, giving new life to both popular and obscure programs that, once they went off the air or ended a successful syndication run, used to be gone for good. Now pay cable channels are taking advantage of pent-up demand for popular shows like 'The Sopranos' and 'Sex and the City.' Modern classics like 'Friends' and 'The Simpsons' are almost as ubiquitous as old episodes of 'I Love Lucy....'
To be sure, the $600 million market for television shows is still dwarfed by the overall demand for DVD's of nearly $11 billion. A large part of that, industry executives say, is theatrical film releases. But according to the DVD Release Report, which tracks what DVD's are distributed, offerings of multi-disc television series increased a record 114 percent in the first seven months of 2003 over the same period last year. (DVD releases in general — including movies, music and animation — showed a 28.5 percent increase)." [New York Times, via Lost Remote, emphasis above is mine]
Note to music industry: people love old stuff and will pay to own it, even if it's being re-broadcast on [free] network television. You just have to offer it at a decent price and in a convenient format (for us, not you). Open up your back catalogs and you'll start seeing profits, too.
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