Why don't they sell all the esp. of friends in US?

I search for the tapes in UK, French, and US online stores, and UK and France both have it. Why not in America??

In article , [email] (Sam) usenetted:

Because the US has syndication.

wg

On 24 Jun 2001 23:32:06 GMT [email] wrote:

Dumb question : what is syndication? and how does it affect the sale on the US?

It's just an alternate way of distributing programming. It used to just mean reruns, but nowadays it also can mean first-run programming.

The affect is simple: the owners of the program (in this case WB) can make more money by making syndication deals with local affiliates all over the country to show Friends episodes. In return, the local affiliates get to add additional commercials (which in turn makes the product more valuable to them in the first place). If they were to start selling the episodes on video, the value of the product to the local affiliates would instantly go way down, and apparently during the years when the series is still on primetime, the money that can be made from video sales does not match what can be made by selling replays to local affiliates (or for that matter, independent stations), so obviously that is why they don't sell them -- yet.

In about 5 years (after the end of the series) or so, Columbia House will offer "Friends - The Collector's Edition". It will trumpet all the things it believes are wonderful about such an offering: you get a tape every 3 or 4 weeks with probably 3 or 4 episodes on it, if you don't like the tape you can return it, blah, blah, blah, but if you want to know if you will be getting every single episode made, or which ones you won't be getting, it will be like pulling teeth trying to find the answer.

Why they don't see THAT as a selling point is beyond me ;-)

In the UK Friends is on Syndication too and their still selling the episodes for sale to own.

My own personal reason for Warner Brothers to release Friends on video in the UK and not the USA is: THEY'RE CHEAP! ~Matt~ ------------------------------------------------------- Fine! Take their advice. No one ever listens to me. When the package is this pretty, no one cares what's inside. -Joey, The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs-

Same here in Sweden. They are showing reruns every day, sometimes twice a day and have been for years, but still the videos and dvds sell very well. But it may have to do with the fact that Friends is only shown on cable channel that only 50% of the population can watch, and doesn't have that many viewers (it only has half of the viewers that Ally McBeal, Darma & Greg have and a third of what Sopranos have).

XMuSicFrEAk820 skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:[email]...

episodes

the

this