TV Guide magazine - a name we're sure all of you know! - has decided to jump into the TV-on-DVD game. Their licensing company has arranged a deal with the Falcon Picture Group to release numerous old televsions shows in the DVD format.
Here are selected portions of the press release issued yesterday, which can be read in its entirety by clicking here:
TV Guide Publishing Group Inc...announced today it signed a new licensing deal with Falcon Picture Group, bringing its powerful brand and expertise in on-screen entertainment to the fast-growing genre of TV shows on DVD.
Under the multi-year deal with Falcon Picture Group, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based maker of DVDs, TV Guide will license a variety of TV Guide brand assets for use in the products and packaging of Falcon Picture Group's newest line, TV Guide brand classic television shows on DVD. Targeting all ages, these DVDs will utilize TV Guide's brand leadership and expertise for a line of digitally remastered classic television shows.
Through its exclusive distribution agreement with Genius Products (OTCBB:GNPI), Falcon Picture Group is developing the first collection of 12 TV Guide brand DVDs, which will include "digitally remastered" classic television programming featuring The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show, The Milton Berle Show, The Burns & Allen Show, You Bet Your Life, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Red Skelton Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza and others. TV Guide brand DVDs will also feature famous Christmas episodes from a variety of series; Unaired Pilot episodes from series including The Munsters, Sea Hunt and others; the best in Sci-Fi and Western programming; and others to be determined. Genius Products will work with major retail outlets to distribute the first collection of 12 DVDs to retail stores in September 2004.
...Falcon Picture Group will license television programs and work with public domain series to generate the content and package the DVD collections, using TV Guide's logo and magazine cover design art as part of the packaging. The DVDs will also contain an enormous amount of "Value Added Material" including TV Guide crossword puzzles, trivia questions, nostalgic advertisements, related feature articles from the magazine and commentary from TV Guide Magazine's Editorial team.
"Each DVD collection will contain two disks with six television programs on each disk -- a total of 12 classic television programs in each collection with a suggested retail of $9.99. We plan to bring the line to retail in September in time for holiday gift-giving," said Mike Meader, president of Genius Products. "At a retail of under 10 dollars for 12 television programs -- six hours of programming -- we expect this to be a huge success. Future TV Guide collections will include The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, The Jack Benny Program, The Cisco Kid, One Step Beyond, Gangbusters and many, many others."
The TV Guide DVDs will be sold via major retail outlets and will be promoted in TV Guide magazine and at www.tvguide.com. TV Guide DVDs will also be sold through the TV Guide Store (http://shop.tvguide.com), which provides licensees with the ability to sell directly to TV Guide's weekly audience of 100 million entertainment enthusiasts.
Our thanks to Bob Demaree for pointing us toward this information. This could be a really great thing. As most TV-on-DVD fans know, public domain episodes from the shows named are already available from countless companies (Alpha, BCI Eclipse, Catcom, Delta, Eclectic, Front Row, Goodtimes, Koch, Madacy, etc.), and at low price points.
But Falcon and TV Guide are taking a different approach, bringing us the episodes at a similar under-$10 price point, but with all of the unique content that only TV Guide has to offer, and packaged in a way TV fans can trust. We're sure, with this approach, that these releases will reflect both the insight and value that has always been associated with the TV Guide name. Stay tuned, because we'll have more about the individual releases in this lineup just as soon as they are announced.
  
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