Monday, May 07, 2007

The Power of Internet Complaints

So after all the online controversy over the cut, nearly music-free season 1 release of WKRP in Cincinnati, the public responded responded by... well, by making it the second-best-selling TV DVD for that week, according to this information from Nielsen VideoScan and The Digital Entertainment Group. The list of the best-selling DVDs for the week ending April 29 has WKRP at # 18, with only one other TV show on that list (the BBC's Planet Earth).

If that's representative of the way the set has sold, I'm not exactly unhappy about that. Still, it's a reminder that online complaints, including overwhelmingly negative reviews at Amazon.com, don't have that much effect (which is not to say we shouldn't complain anyway).

The question now is whether the studio will take that as a) an indication that the sales potential justifies spending actual money on music licensing for the other three seasons, or b) an indication that nobody will care if they remove the music and cut scenes. As usual, I'm suspecting b) but choose to hold out forlorn hope for a).

Here's one bit from the second season that was severely diminished in the Nick at Nite/Comedy Network version when they redubbed the music (and which Fox, for obvious reasons, could likely put back if they really wanted to).



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not surprised it's sold so well. I've come to realize that one of the problems with spending so much time reading blogs and message boards is that you start to believe that the number of people who care about things like edits for content is much, much larger than it really is. The truth is, I suspect, that the vast majority doesn't care. Not to say, of course, that we shouldn't complain. Just that we need to be realistic about our numbers and our chances for success.

Anonymous said...

The internet complaint is very powerful. A site like MyBiggestComplaint gives a voice to those that would probably never have their complaint heard anywhere else. People do listen. Keep complaining - the squeaky wheel gets the grease.