The other day (and by that, I mean two months ago), I was in Chapters, browsing through the DVDs. As usual, I looked for some of my favourite shows to see if there were any sales going on. Not really noticing anything, I then started one of my new favourite past-times: looking for Canadian shows on DVD. It's like a great game of Hide and Seek. I thought that considering Chapters is a Canadian store, maybe they would prove to have a better selection of Canadian shows (perhaps this thinking was encouraged by the "The World Needs More Canada" section which showcases books about Canada). However it still remained a feat to find TV shows. I did manage to find some though, including Slings and Arrows which I had almost completely forgotten about.
Then I found something that made me both excited and concerned. There was a copy of Robson Arms season 2. I'd seen a couple episodes of it and enjoyed it so I was excited, especially when I saw that it was only $20. Then I thought about it and that seemed extremely cheap for an entire season of a show. Having previously bought DVDs of Grey's, I know how much a season can go for. I decided to pick up a movie (Lars and the Real Girl) just to compare prices. Lars was at least $30. Now this confused me since they were both from approximately the same time (2007) so you would assume the TV show should be more, right? This disturbed me but not nearly as much as when I found a copy of jPOD season 1 in a bin at HMV with a "2 for $10" sticker on it. I know that jPOD might not have been wildly successful but it's only been off the hour for one year and hardly deserves to be only$5.
Now, I don't know the reasons why these TV shows are so much cheaper than pretty much most other things. Maybe there are some high tariffs on American DVDs (okay, so I have no idea what tariffs really are, either). I'm hoping there is some reasonable explanation for why Canadian shows seems unbelieveably cheap. I know they are not as popular as the American shows, but is that really the only determining factor? And if you know why, free feel to enlighten me. I would really like to know how this system works.
The upside to all this? I might actually be able to afford some of these shows on DVD. I mean, I pretty much would only need like $500 to own the entire Canadian canon. Sweet deal.
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I can't say for sure, but popularity definitely plays a part. When you consider the cost of copying DVD's is next to nothing and once you've paid your designer, printing labels and cases doesn't amount much, it stands to reason that no DVD or DVD box set should cost that much. However, Canadian items will always have to be cheaper to attract buyers and considering the fact that Canadian films/TV show audiences are a niche market even within Canada, you gotta keep the cost low to get the impulse buys as well.
ReplyDeleteHorrified that jPOD would be in a 2 for $10, that's extreme even considering what I just said. That makes me even sadder than the fact that Canadian films are kept in the foreign film section at movie stores.