TV series dvd price question

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

I still like to watch old tv series that I enjoyed in youth and I've been purchasing some just for my own convenience to retrieve from the closet even though I am finding more and more of the old time series on the streaming products we own for free.

I've attempted to buy things used or by long term sellers when online to minimize the risk of getting unauthorized products.

Recently I've come across something that seems weird price wise. I was looking at the 5 season the Maverick set by James Garner (a western gambler theme). Most of the streaming services only offer the show with a premium subscription.

I know it is old enough that it even came out is vh and only is offered in non wide format.. old tv square style.

It seems to cost ~4-5 x what similar popular tv VHS series are available for.

I can get a free fix on MeTv as it is supposedly offered Saturday mornings but trying to figure out the logic of asking that much for something who's fan base is probably drying up as we all downsize our DVDs and even some cross the river Styx.

I realize demand affects price and I might have guessed 50% more or so. But these are still being manufactured. Maybe COVID related?

Interested in other ideas.

 

[Aerides]

Not sure if this is the reason for your specific series, but one of the issues with bringing older shows to streaming is music rights.

In many cases, older shows would pay to use popular songs for that episode, perhaps for syndication...or not. Then, later, negotiated to use those songs in VHS/box releases. But the costs of bringing the lawyers back for streaming have put a lot of things on the list for probably-never-gonna.

The Murphy Brown original series is a prime example. They used big time major songs (different ones) every single week. Even had the characters singing them sometimes so it's not a matter of just putting a new track on them...

 

[braumeister]

I'm waiting until it comes out on Betamax.

 

[Sunset]

I would be inclinded to watch on various streaming services, even premium ones as I can watch a LOT of shows in a month.
Just do 1 service at a time and the cost is cheap.
Plus there is no hassle of changing tapes, finding the next tape, seeing the tape fail part way though, etc.

One annnoyance with old shows is they are sometimes streamed in low quality , probably as low as the vhs tapes. In the old days we never expected anything better than 480 line resolution, but on a 20" screen it was good enough. Now on my 55" screen I can see the fuzzyness of old shows.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I too have enjoyed some of the older shows. Watching titles like Soap, Benson, The Fall Guy, Maverick...they are a great distraction to all things that is the year 2020. I agree that it's tough to watch these, though. MeTV carries a lot of these shows, but there are lots of commercials which include the incessant political ads.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

Not sure if this is the reason for your specific series, but one of the issues with bringing older shows to streaming is music rights.

In many cases, older shows would pay to use popular songs for that episode, perhaps for syndication...or not. Then, later, negotiated to use those songs in VHS/box releases. But the costs of bringing the lawyers back for streaming have put a lot of things on the list for probably-never-gonna.

The Murphy Brown original series is a prime example. They used big time major songs (different ones) every single week. Even had the characters singing them sometimes so it's not a matter of just putting a new track on them...

Thanks! This was exactly the sort of response I was hoping for. I try to learn when reality is different than what I expect and bring more sophisticated thinking into future observations. Can't say I had even though how new technology would change the digital rights of music in preexisting series of TV programs due to limits in contract specifications.