Mr. Staddon comments on OAR Support at Fox!
For those of you that missed the Chat with Peter Staddon, Senior Vice President of marketing @ Fox Studios, the other night, and have yet to read the transcript, I’d like to reprint his responses to several questions. First the question: then Mr. Staddon’s response.
[michaelsliger] Any chance of a status update for the “Millennium: Season 1″ box set? Is the rumored “late 2003″ release date realistic? Has any work been started to prep the episodes yet (hopefully 16x9 widescreen if that season was shot in that manner)?
[peterstaddon] That is another tv series I would love to see on DVD. The first two seasons were outstanding. I think you will see season 1 in 2003 and depending on how that sells we will release subsequent seasons. If it was filmed in 16x9 it will be released in 16x9!
[ParkerClack] My question for the night—How are OAR titles selling in comparison to P & S titles for Fox in general?
[peterstaddon] It varies by title and genre. Something like Ep II will obviously sell more widescreen, a lot of other movies are more 50:50. More and more we will try to get both versions on one release as we did on Ice Age
[JoshuaClinard] Hi. Thanks for coming. I really think that many people are buying Full Screen only because they do not know what they are missing by not having widescreen. All the people I [have] talk[ed] to really do not know what the difference is, and once educated, almost all of them seem to think that widescreen is the obvious choice. But I can’t talk to everyone! I think if the studios would educate the consumers, then there would be less returns at Wal-Mart and other retailers.
[peterstaddon] This is something I hear all the time, and the sad fact is that most people do not care about OAR. It is not an education issue - they have a square 27 inch or smaller TV screen and they want to fill it up! You can describe the benefits of widescreen until you are blue in the face to a number of people and they still will not care. That doesn’t mean to say that we should give up the issue. We are including OAR and P &S releases on a number of titles on the same disc. We are looking to see if there is a way, using the disc that they have just bought that we can demonstrate the difference to them. but the sad fact is that the average DVD buyer at a Wal-Mart simply does not care about OAR.
So there you have it! He seems to be saying that FOX will always support OAR, even on TV product if the show was shot that way. He also says they may provide a modified version as well. Note: My question was cut short on the transcript.
[michaelsliger] Any chance of a status update for the “Millennium: Season 1″ box set? Is the rumored “late 2003″ release date realistic? Has any work been started to prep the episodes yet (hopefully 16x9 widescreen if that season was shot in that manner)?
[peterstaddon] That is another tv series I would love to see on DVD. The first two seasons were outstanding. I think you will see season 1 in 2003 and depending on how that sells we will release subsequent seasons. If it was filmed in 16x9 it will be released in 16x9!
[ParkerClack] My question for the night—How are OAR titles selling in comparison to P & S titles for Fox in general?
[peterstaddon] It varies by title and genre. Something like Ep II will obviously sell more widescreen, a lot of other movies are more 50:50. More and more we will try to get both versions on one release as we did on Ice Age
[JoshuaClinard] Hi. Thanks for coming. I really think that many people are buying Full Screen only because they do not know what they are missing by not having widescreen. All the people I [have] talk[ed] to really do not know what the difference is, and once educated, almost all of them seem to think that widescreen is the obvious choice. But I can’t talk to everyone! I think if the studios would educate the consumers, then there would be less returns at Wal-Mart and other retailers.
[peterstaddon] This is something I hear all the time, and the sad fact is that most people do not care about OAR. It is not an education issue - they have a square 27 inch or smaller TV screen and they want to fill it up! You can describe the benefits of widescreen until you are blue in the face to a number of people and they still will not care. That doesn’t mean to say that we should give up the issue. We are including OAR and P &S releases on a number of titles on the same disc. We are looking to see if there is a way, using the disc that they have just bought that we can demonstrate the difference to them. but the sad fact is that the average DVD buyer at a Wal-Mart simply does not care about OAR.
So there you have it! He seems to be saying that FOX will always support OAR, even on TV product if the show was shot that way. He also says they may provide a modified version as well. Note: My question was cut short on the transcript.
~ See what you've been missing! See it in Widescreen! ~