What’s in a Package?

I noted with some interest an Internet story proclaiming this week as the 20th anniversary of the launch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or ”Next Gen”, as the fans invariably call it. It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the second regular series launched; it’s even harder to believe that the second series was able to generate even more support than its legendary predecessor, spawning three more “Star Trek” series and four movies staring the new cast. Even more amazing is that an idea Gene Roddenberry threw together in the 1960’s (“Wagon Train to the Stars” was Gene’s original pitch for the show) still has legs 20 years later – at least, if you count DVD sales.

I should come as no surprise that there’s a 20th Anniversary Edition boxed set coming onto the market this coming week featuring all 176 “Next Gen” episodes and lots of bonus material on 49 DVDs. After all, recent years have seen the introduction of boxed sets of hundreds of “classic” television shows, from early series like “The Honeymooners” and “I Love Lucy” to series still on the air today. The boxed set featuring the complete series of “Sex and the City” was on the market less than three months after the series wrapped (before the start of the next television season), and current hit shows usually have the previous season available before the current one starts.

Back when “Next Gen” was still on the air, I was working in cable television, and the boogeyman at that time was what we called “Video Dialtone” – television service provided over fiber-optical telephone lines (what is today called “broadband”). We were concerned about the advent of cable deregulation, the appearance of tiny satellite dishes that could fit on any roof, cable signal being made available via microwave, and of course, television over the Internet. Somehow, though, we never thought that entire television series would ever be made available in convenient forms the size of a paperback book. But we should have.

The development of DVD releases of old television shows is one of the best examples of re-packaging a product to have appeared in the past decade, and possibly the last century. To the companies that own the rights to these shows, the cost of producing a boxed set is minimal; production of the actual disks is trivial, and the printing of the boxes and liner notes isn’t much more expensive. In most cases, they already own the rights to all of the images, logos and likenesses they will need, as well as the property the disks will contain. There is probably a contractual obligation to pay the actors and creative people involved, but giving up a (usually tiny) percentage of the money you are raking in has never been much of an obstacle.

What may not be clear in all of this is how these sales are generated in the first place. There’s an impulse to dismiss this type of product sales as merely a fad, particularly in the case of Star Trek series or other programming with a cult following. But in point of fact, what gives these products their appeal is a combination of Convenience and Value Added. It would be relatively simple to record all of the episodes of any syndicated show, particularly one like Star Trek, which will be on cable at some time every single day. But these boxed sets feature all of the episodes, in their original broadcast order, all neatly recorded and labeled. Much more convenient than trying to record them yourself, or (worse yet) trying to find an episode you want to watch at the moment you want to watch it. The boxed sets also include bonus material (commentary, cast biographies, promotional items) in an attempt to provide value added; sometimes this makes the difference in the sales figures.

What we as business people can learn from this example is simple: never assume that just because public interest in your product has faded your product no longer has value. If disco music, 1970s fashions and “classic” television sitcoms can all continue to generate revenue in the 21st Century, your product probably can, too. It’s just a matter of finding a market that wants to purchase your product – and then finding a way to include convenience and/or added value in your packaging…