24 Leak Debacle…How Could FOX Not Know This Would Happen?
I knew this whole ‘Premiere DVD’ that FOX was planning for the first four episodes of 24 was a bad idea. I even talked about it in an earlier article. I didn’t understand the reason to make something like this.
Why would someone, as a consumer, buy a DVD of a television show, of only the first four episodes? Especially if that DVD is going to be over 15 bucks, when you can buy an entire 24 season DVD set for 35 dollars, and even less when they go on sale which they do regularly.
I just couldn’t get my head around the reasoning on FOX on this one. At first I thought maybe they are doing it to curb the BitTorrent downloads of it’s episodes, but then I just couldn’t figure out how a DVD like this would actually help.
Now this whole ‘Premiere DVD’ fiasco has seemed to blow up in their faces. In this technological world where DVD’s can be ripped as easily as CD’s and put onto the internet for everyone to download, how in the world did FOX think that this would be a good idea? Especially if they made all the DVD’s this long before the actual premiere of season 6. How did they not expect this to happen?
I’ve heard at a couple places that this could all just be a huge ploy to gain viewers and then switch the crucial plot twists in the actual premiere, but I just can’t see something like that happening. The time and money put into filming something just for BitTorrent users to download like suckers would seem to be a bit worthless to me.
Now the question comes, will this affect the premiere audience? I said before that I don’t think it will affect it that much. But, after this whole thing I can’t help but think that this is going to affect, somewhat, the numbers come this Sunday.
Over on isohunt.com I took this screencap:
I can’t believe how many people are downloading it. And that’s just one site. Take a look at their top searches. Two days ago 24 wasn’t even on the list, now it’s #4.
I’m dying to find out what FOX has to say about the debacle. Do you think they’ll say anything about it? Has anyone else seen or heard anything on how FOX is going to react to this?
Please do tell.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I think this is some great publicity for them! This has created quite a hype and I don’t think it will hurt FOX at all.
January 16th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
24 - the way TV should be
Current mood: anxious
what RustyG thinks….
24 just got finished up the full 4 hour 2 night premiere and they have already released the first 4 episodes on DVD. This means, what I just watched Sunday night and Monday night are already on DVD. I don’t have to wait over 6 months more for the DVD to be released. As a teaser and a marketing ploy, they give you next week’s teaser before it shows!!! This motivates you to purchase it before next week so that you can see what’s going on!
I absolutely LOVE this idea!!!!! Not only did they include the teaser for next week, but they have included a coupon for $10 off of any season from 1-6, the coupon is good till February 29th, 2008!!!!! This means at the end of this season, I can get $10 off it immediately!!! It also includes all of the other DVDs as well, so that’s cool if you have missed out on any other of the dvds as well.
WHY can’t hollywood get this through their heads. 24 lead the way in this type of television when it first premiered, by making it a show that you HAVE to watch every single week. It gets you hooked.
With over 33 million tuning into the the premieire, and hopefully with the sales of the 24 DVD premiere this will show hollywood to produce their dvds the same day they release other shows or movies for that matter.
This is the first time that I have seen a television show come out the day after on DVD!!!! This totally discouraged me to ‘cough’ ‘cough’ pirate ‘cough’ ‘cough’ the television show. It seemed kind of pointless to waste time downloading the file, if I could go out that night, after midnight and pick it up at my local 24 hour Wal-mart. (I don’t like them, but they are open 24 hours.)
Especially since the DVD was only $8.94 +tax!!!! If they continue to do this, they will continue to get my $8.94! This is multiplied by 6 (4 episodes per disc, 6 discs) for a total of $53.64+tax. That seems to be a good way of gettin their revenue faster and a lot earlier by releasing it day after.
This has also deterred me to ‘cough’ ‘cough’ pirate ‘cough’ ‘cough’ the show as well because I can just go pick it up hours after I just watched it!!!
I honestly did NOT know about the episodes being leaked out early, I work too much as it is to know about them being leaked, but I still went out and bought the DVD. I already own the first 5 as it is anyway due to the fact I am a faithful supporter of the show!!!
that’s what RustyG thinks…
January 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
WOW! Wonderful, and insightful comment RustyG. I had no idea about the coupon that’s a pretty dang good deal.
It seems that the leaked episodes didn’t hurt ratings, so it seems that the DVD was a good idea after all.
Aaron.