Friday Night Lights price halved to appeal to new audience
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Paula Morgan – 09/21/07
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By Ned Randolph -- Video Business, 9/21/2007
SEPT. 21 | To encourage viewers to tune into the critically acclaimed Friday Night Lights series, NBC distributor Universal Studios Home Entertainment has issued the first season on DVD for roughly half the typical list price of full-season box sets, and the company is offering a money back guarantee for anyone who does not like it, said a studio spokeswoman.
"We did it to encourage people to buy it," she said.
The show’s $29.98 SRP, which is half of the typical price of $50 to $60, is discounted to as little as $19.95 on Amazon and $24.95 at Best Buy.
Based on a motion picture with the same name, Friday Night Lights follows the trials of a first-time high school football coach and his team, the Dillon Panthers.
Critically acclaimed by newspapers across the country, the show's first season took home an Emmy Award for outstanding casting, a George Foster Peabody for broadcasting excellence, as well as awards from American Cinema Editors and Television Critics Assn.
"We're certain that home entertainment consumers who haven't yet experienced this unique show will be instantly won over by it once they see it," said Hilary Hoffman, senior VP of brand and digital marketing at Universal.
Hoffman added that half-season sets were available exclusively at Wal-Mart priced at $10, but Universal did not say how many copies were shipped or how well they sold.
DVD Empire editorial director Shannon Nutt applauded the pricing as a “smart marketing move.”
“Friday Night Lights is a well-written and highly acclaimed show that still hasn’t found an audience in terms of ratings,” he said. “By releasing the season set shortly before the premiere of season two and at such an affordable price, Universal is obviously hoping to add to the show’s fan-base, and therefore, add to the TV viewership when the program returns to the airwaves in a few weeks.”
However, Nutt did indicate that sales were lukewarm even with the price cut, “which may be a harbinger of how season two will fare ratings-wise or may simply be a reflection of the interests of our customer base ... hard to say,” he said.
