BARGAIN CHRISTMAS VIDEOS : HOLIDAY PRE-ORDERS NEAR 2 MILLION

It’s already looking like a Merry Christmas for the videocassette industry--especially for Paramount Home Video.

Paramount has led the way in reducing prices on major video releases, and the company’s latest gamble--placing a $29.95 tag on “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”--looks like it’s going to pay off. Video stores have ordered 1.3 million tapes of the Steven Spielberg adventure film. Obviously, they believe that a lot of Christmas shoppers will want to buy the blockbuster follow-up to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when it hits the shelves Oct. 29.

On top of that, Paramount’s simultaneous “20 Great Video Gifts Under $20” promotion of reduced-price tapes for the holiday season has racked up 1.9 million in pre-orders. Among the titles that’ll go on sale for $19.95 (well, a nickel under $20 is still “Under $20”) on Oct. 29 are “Raiders,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Flashdance,” “Witness” and the first three “Star Trek” movies. The combined total of 3.2 million units in pre-orders amounts to a projected $76 million in retail sales. And that’s not even counting the possibility of reorders.

“This is great not only for Paramount but for the whole video industry,” said Tim Clott, senior vice president and general manager of Paramount Home Video. “For a while we were carrying the low-price-promo torch alone, but now everyone’s out there making the consumer aware that videos are available for purchase.”

Paramount paved the way in the Christmas season of 1982. At that time, video companies expected to sell one or two copies to each video store and little beyond that, so prices ran around $80 or more. Some observers thought Paramount was crazy to put out “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” at $39.95 in November, 1982, but it sold “an incredible amount of units,” Clott recalls. The next year “Raiders” hit the stores at the same price and sold 425,000 copies. Then for Christmas ’85 Paramount introduced “Beverly Hills Cop” at $29.95; it then became the company’s biggest seller at 1.35 million units (a figure “Temple of Doom” seems bound to surpass). Other companies have followed with their own bargain prices. Disney just put out “Sleeping Beauty” in its initial release at $29.95--another potential Christmas present for consumers and the industry.

The 1.9 million in pre-orders for Paramount’s “20/20” multi-tape promotion may be the most heartening sign yet for video sales--that figure is way up from 650,000 units for last year’s Paramount push, which offered 25 films at $24.95 each. The biggest bell-jingler in the package isn’t “Raiders” or “Cop,” but “White Christmas.” There were 280,000 pre-orders for the 1954 Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye film, topping last year’s 250,000 units.

Any dark side to all this Christmas glee? “Only if the reorders come in so fast that we can’t fill them right away--after all, the duplicating machines can only work so fast,” said Clott, not sounding very worried. How about renting--will that fall off? “So far,” noted Clott, “there’s no sign of erosion in the rental market--it’s just that people who’ve always wanted to buy their favorite tapes are now finding that the price is right.”

CHARTS

(Compiled by Billboard magazine)

TOP VIDEOCASSETTE SALES

1. “Jane Fonda’s New Workout (Karl-Lorimar)

2. “The Sound of Music” (CBS-Fox)

3. “Amadeus” (HBO-Cannon)

4. “The Music Man” (Warner)

5. “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (Touchstone)

6. “Out of Africa” (Universal)

7. “Alien” (CBS-Fox)

8. “Jane Fonda’s Low Impact Aerobic Workout” (Karl-Lorimar)

9. “Jane Fonda’s Workout” (Karl-Lorimar)

10. “Kathy Smith’s Body Basics” (JCI)

TOP VIDEOCASSETTE RENTALS

1. “Out of Africa” (MCA)

2. “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (Touchstone)

3. “F/X” (HBO-Cannon)

4. “Gung Ho” (Paramount)

5. “Wildcats” (Warner)

6. “Runaway Train” (MGM-UA)

7. “Young Sherlock Holmes” (Paramount)

8. “Murphy’s Romance” (RCA-Columbia)

9. “Crossroads” (RCA-Columbia)

10. “Critters” (RCA-Columbia)