It's so annoying, the games they play...

I think the retail of DVDs in the US is largely screwed up. By selling the boxsets of last season a matter of days before the new season starts you have no chance of using the boxset as device to bring in new viewers.

DVD boxsets surely serve two audiences:

1. Those people who love the show and watch it again and again, ad-free and without bugs, captions and other on-screen garbage.

2. People who perhaps missed a series, particularly those with an on-going storyline that made it harder to jump into the series mid-season.

The first group wants to get hold of the boxset as soon as possible because they love the show and want to own it.

The second group wants to get holf of the boxset as soon as possible too, because they've heard good things about the series and would now like to see it for themselves.

As others have said, waiting for the new season to start really doesn't make sense. Even from a marketing perspective, there are loads of other boxsets all coming out around the same time as all the other series return. Having them come out spread over the summer would at least mean that you're not fighting too much for shelf space etc.

Aside from sometimes needing some time to put together extras after the event, there's no real reason to delay at all. And in any case, a smart production is surely thinking about what goes onto the DVD while the series is in production. For example, both Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who have commentaries available to download the same week as the new episodes air. It's a simple task to pop these onto their respective DVD boxsets.

In the UK, it's normally a question of getting the DVDs into the shops as soon as possible so you can still use the heat of the show to drive sales. Miss the season finale of Lost? Rush out and buy the full season boxset (of course, you can't get the latest season of Lost yet in the UK because we get episodes at the same time as the US). Series that are on pay-tv channels like 24 or Prison Break, are in stores the Monday after the final episode has aired to a large extent, even if that means missing extras that US discs will eventually get.

Indeed for British productions, DVDs are sometimes available in store *before* the final episode has aired - so if you're dying to see the final episode in a mini-series as soon as possible you can buy it on a Monday rather than wait until Thursday to see it on air.

I'm so glad that someone has made light of this FINALLY. I never understood it, how can they expect to get more viewers if they don't allow people to watch an entire season before the next season starts. What ends up happening is that you don't end up watching the next season until you finish the one that just came out on dvd.

Guess we should be happy that some shows get DVD's -- I'm still hoping that The CW will release REAPER on dvd -- anyone else agree?

Good post Brett. Sadly, you are preaching to the choir my friend. :-(

I hate how they wait to release the DVDs. They even do that for shows like LOST, 24, and The Shield which have extended hiatuses so that makes me pretty certain that capitalizing on the new season is pretty much the only reason.

What I find even more annoying than that is that How I Met Your Mother doesn't come to DVD until OCTOBER. I don't understand that one bit. It came out in October last year, also. This year, The Big Bang Theory comes out in early September like most, but HIMYM does not. It's such a great show and I *know* it would gain more viewers if it was released on DVD earlier.

EXACTLY!!
Theres virtually nothing to watch in the summer and i'm more than willy to check out some shows I missed on DVD. If I like it I would tune in to the next season. Chuck is the perfect example. I've heard good things, I'd like to give it a try but whats the point of rushing through a season in september when all the new shows are premiering and theres all the back-to-school work.
Its a stupid setup and they're just costing themselves money. Lots of it!

If you think that's messed up think again; season 4 of Lost doesn't come out until December.

I actually pieced together enough of the Chuck episodes by jumping from bouncing from Hulu (where they had more episodes at one point) to NBC.com and then finally broke down and bought the last 3 episodes from Unbox.

It is a really stupid way of doing business if they want to build up interest in a show like Chuck.

Just download them from torrents