Home Entertainment : Video Trend: Pre-Selling of TV Shows

Some of the marketing ploys in home video these days just don’t make sense.

Take “Baseball,” for instance, Ken Burns’ 18 1/2-hour homage to the national pastime, which starts Sunday on PBS and ends on Sept. 28. Next Friday, after the series has been on TV for five days, the nine-tape set comes out on home video, from Turner Home Entertainment--priced at $180 for the set or $25 for each individual tape.

Wouldn’t you think a video release in the middle of the series would cut down on the TV ratings?

Not so, said Eric Sass, PBS’ senior vice president of video marketing:

“Our experience shows that availability in the video store does not affect the ratings. That’s because the broadcast audience is so much larger than the video audience. Millions will see it on TV but how many will spend nearly $200 to buy the whole set? In this case, video availability may even help ratings. Some people may tune in to preview it before making the decision to buy it, which would actually boost ratings.”

The notion that video availability won’t hurt TV ratings is undoubtedly the thinking behind Republic’s plan to send its production of “Texas,” based on the James Michener novel, to video even before it’s aired on TV. Priced at $50, “Texas” is due in stores Nov. 2 but won’t be telecast on ABC until early next year.

Another aspect of the “Baseball” scheduling doesn’t make sense. If people can see it on TV--and possibly tape it--why should they bother with the video?

“It doesn’t necessarily work that way,” countered Craig Van Gorp, Turner’s vice president of sales. “The TV show may lift video sales. Many people who buy ‘Baseball’ will be buying it as a gift. It will be firmly established in the home-video marketplace when people are doing their Christmas shopping.

“There’s also another reason seeing it on TV may help it in the video market,” Van Gorp continued. “It’s a long series. People may not have time to watch it all on TV and don’t want to bother taping something that runs so long. It’s easier for those people to buy the set or at least some of the individual tapes.”

Turner and PBS aren’t exactly at odds in this situation. Sass pointed out that PBS gets a share of the video revenues. “It’s not like Turner is putting out the video at a time to only help themselves--because it helps us too,” he said. “This is simply the smartest way to market the video.”

PBS learned a lesson from what happened with Burns’ last series, “The Civil War.” That one, Sass said, debuted on video four months after the telecast. “We learned we’re better off having it in the stores at the time of broadcast,” he said. “When people want to buy it they should be able to get it. There was a market for the video about the time the show was on TV. If we had put it on video at the same time it was on TV or just after, we would have sold many more sets.”

And what about the season-ending baseball strike? Will that hurt or harm “Baseball” on TV? Right now many fans aren’t too thrilled with the sport.

“It’s a hard one to call, but we don’t think there will be a negative effect,” Sass replied. “This show is largely a look back to better times for baseball, which many fans might like to do at a time like this. Also, some people may watch because it’s the only baseball they can see right now.”

Videobits

“Speed,” the surprise hit of the summer, is speeding to home market on Nov. 15. FoxVideo will price it for the sales market--$20. So far it’s the lone action-thriller in this price range scheduled for fall release, so it should have that market all to itself. Executives expect to ship between 8 million and 12 million cassettes.

One of John Wayne’s most popular Westerns is finally coming to home video. “Hondo,” made in 1953, is due on Tuesday, priced at $20. This and FoxVideo’s “An Affair to Remember” should be the fall’s best-selling classic movies.

Jessica Tandy

Since Jessica Tandy’s death last weekend, much of the media attention has focused on her Oscar-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy.” “Fried Green Tomatoes,” which was a huge box-office and video hit a few years ago, has been unfairly neglected. Tandy does the best acting in this absorbing, complexly structured, nearly all-female drama that spans many decades.

If you want a glimpse of Tandy early in her career, try to find Paramount’s “September Affair” from 1950. This is a very romantic and underappreciated drama about a wealthy married man (Joseph Cotten) and a concert pianist (Joan Fontaine) who decide to live together in Italy. Tandy plays the wife who’s cruelly left behind. The romance is enhanced by the glorious footage of Italy--mainly Florence and Capri--and the haunting “September Song,” which dominates the soundtrack.

What’s New On Video:

“The Crow” (Miramax). Dark, eerie, surrealistic horror-thriller based on a comic-book character. A rock musician (Brandon Lee), who was murdered with his fiancee, comes back to life to track down the killers, helped by an otherworldly crow. Lee, who was killed in a freak accident during the last days of filming, is riveting as the tortured avenger. With its moody, alternative-metal score, it’s terrific entertainment for gloom-and-doom-oriented teens.

“Threesome” (Columbia TriStar). A college comedy about roommates locked in an unconventional triangle. A female student (Lara Flynn Boyle) longs for a scholar (Josh Charles) who in turn is attracted to a macho-man (Stephen Baldwin) who’s set his sights on Boyle. As you might expect in a Hollywood movie, the gay subplot is handled superficially. Otherwise, though, a decent comedy geared to late teens and twentysomethings.