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"We're Number One!"

J

Joseph DeMartino

Moderator
\"We\'re Number One!\"

At least with one Canadian DVD dealer.

Checked their website last week and the B5 DVDs were number 9 on their best seller list. Looked again this week and other titles occupied the 9 and 10 slots, so I figured it had dropped off. Then I looked at the whole list:

1. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season
2. X-Files: Complete Sixth Season
3. 24: The Complete First Season
4. Blade II
5. Reservoir Dogs: 10Th Ann. Edtn. (Mr. White)
6. Back To The Future: The Complete Trilogy
7. Monsters, Inc.
8. Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
9. Spider-Man: Collector's Set
10. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

Not bad for an obscure cult TV show, eh?

I'm hesitant to name the site, since they compete with Antony's sponsor, Amazon.com, but the fact that they're offering the lowest current price on the set (at least in U.S. dollars) has been reported all over the 'net.

This, in itself, almost certainly makes their list unrepresentative. (There are TV boxed sets in the top three positions, probably because a lot of U.S. fans have bought them there to take advantage of the exchange rate, for instance.) Still, it is nice to see B5 in that company, and nicer to see it beating that kind of competition, even if only for awhile, and only at one vendor's site.

I think Warner Home Video is going to be very pleased (and very surprised) when the final sales figures come in.

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

Well at least were finally number one somewhere .......Seriously this is GREAT NEWS even if it is at one site B5 may finally get released for all five seasons.
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

Very nice , good news indeed! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

Can`t wait for the B5 Season 1 Boxset! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

Checked Amazon.com sales rating -- 65. However this is excellent since Amazon does not rate singles and series sets separately. Think I'll check Amazon's top 100 list and see how many series sets are ahead of B5.

Edit: #12 in boxed sets. Of Scifi boxed sets, Stargate Sg-1 S-1, Startrek S-4, Buffy S-2 are ahead of B5 in sales ranking.
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

Now that sure is depressing news remember B5 is just some little cult show with neither a following like Trek's or Buffy. /forums/images/icons/frown.gif
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

It's doing very well for a little cult show.

I hope Sci-Fi is getting sick at the thought that they passed over Rangers. "Wait - uh - there IS an audience out there - ooooops... maybe it was our terrible awareness campaign!"

Oh, well.
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif @Channe

Yeah, we can only hope they are kicking themselves in the ass for passing on Rangers. /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

Aww! But if they're kicking themselves in the ass ... they're taking away something else we wanted ... WE wanted to kick them in the arse! /forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
"Wait - uh - there IS an audience out there - ooooops... maybe it was our terrible awareness campaign!"


[/quote]

You mean the huge advertising campaign with commercials on other networks, billboards, magazine ads and a preview before the hottest movie in theaters in December? That "terrible awareness campaign"? Say what you like about Sci-Fi's ultimate decision not to pursue a Rangers series, and blame the ratings for the football game if it makes you feel better, but you have to ignore the facts if you're gonig to fault Sci-Fi's promotion of the Rangers pilot, or imply that it was to blame for the Neilsen numbers.

No B5 project has ever had a better promotional campaign, and the only one to equal it was TNT's effort when they first acquired the reruns and the fifth season. (And that one cost a couple of million dollars.)

Besides, 1) Sci-Fi knows that B5 is popular. It is Rangers they had their doubts about. 2) Even if B5 became one of the best-selling TV shows of all time on DVD it would only have sold a couple of hundred thousand copies. Not terribly impressive for an industry where a million viewers is considered only "OK" for a new series and a half-million viewers will get a show in reruns moved to a lousy timeslot or taken off the air entirely.

Rangers was an OK - not a great - TV movie. I think the series idea it contained had potential, and I don't think a lot of the criticism it originally got was either accurate or fair. (Much of it centered on things that never happened in the movie.) But that doesn't blind me to the genuine flaws in the film, and I don't think that the football game was the only reason the ratings were so disappointing. It certainly doesn't strike me as indefensible that Sci-Fi could look at the finished film, the ratings, and the fact that they would not own a piece of the series if they produced it, and decide to pass on the idea.

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

The only real advertising risk that I saw was the Fellowship trailer gig. I don't remember seeing ads on any networks other than Sci-Fi and a few small cable outlets like Lifetime. I scoured the shelves for ads in the weeks approaching the airdate and only found one in Sci-Fi Magazine and one in another genre mag. And you can hardly tell me that a few cars running about a few major cities and a few (one or two, IIRC) billboards at Sunset and Vine and in NYC count for reaching a lot of people...

Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough.

Heh heh, after dishing it out in other threads I get it dished to me. I deserved it this time.

I never said I didn't recognize the flaws in the film, Joe dear. It was a truly mediocre script.
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

The ads were wall-to-wall on Discovery, TLC, The History Channel, et. al. - pretty much on all the channels that I normally watch. I was surprised because you rarely see SFC advertise shows off-network. There were pop-up ads on a number of websites, including the on-line version of Variety and The Internet Movie Database. And the LotR trailer even ran in obscure little burgs like Wellington, Florida, which is where I ended up seeing it. There were also interviews with JMS on at least two other websites prior to the film's debut. I remember seeing a list of publications where print ads ran, but don't recall where, or which ones were specified. Certatainly B5 itself never got anything like that kind of promotion in the PTEN days.

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: \"We\'re Number One!\"

This is so reminscent of what just happened with Witchblade. They heavily promoted it all over with billboards, commercials and spots for the second season. It even got good ratings over all..and what did they do? Decided since it was on top, they wouldn't pick up a third season. Geee..are we surprised? TNT and SciFi have consistently screwed with popular shows that have a reasonable to large following.
TNT screwed Crusade, and scifi chose not to pursue the Rangers as a series.
Well, we'll always have our videos. and dvds

PM
 
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