TV ON DVD: 'TIS THE SEASONS 2004-11-15 (2)

KELLY GATES / Additional reporting: Liza Casabona

Along with feature-length movies and animated pictures, entire television seasons have made their way to DVD and VHS recently, creating a new and quickly growing video segment.

Recent television shows have done the best for B&R Stores, Lincoln, Neb., said video buyer/coordinator Bob Gettner.

"The releases that are pretty current have done the best. The older ones haven't done as well."

Gettner said HBO's "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos" have done "phenomenally well" for his departments, and Fox's "Nip/Tuck" DVD has also done very well. Older shows that he has carried like "The A-Team," "Starsky and Hutch," "Night Rider" and "The Dukes of Hazard" have not performed nearly as well.

"We might back away from the older titles and concentrate on the newer ones," he said. Gettner said he hopes the first season of "That '70s Show," released on DVD Oct. 26, will do well.

The roll call of shows both old and new released on DVD has been growing exponentially, while perennial favorites like "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos," and "Friends" continue to sell briskly, industry sources said.

New-to-video seasons of classic television shows released on DVD this year include "The Simpsons," "MASH," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Home Improvement," "Boy Meets World," "Golden Girls," "The Flintstones" and "Lost in Space," among others.

Newer shows include seasons of "Family Guy," "Gilmore Girls," "Arrested Development," "Tru Calling," "The West Wing," "Chappelle's Show," and "The Simple Life 2."

Children's television shows also provide a revenue source for video retailers, industry executives said. Some titles even cross the line between adult-oriented fare and children's programming.

"One of our standout titles this holiday season is 'SpongeBob SquarePants, Season 2,' which has been timed to coincide with the theatrical release of the SpongeBob movie," said Martin Blythe, spokesman for Paramount Home Entertainment, Hollywood, Calif. "It may come as a surprise, but this is a season box set that's pitched at adults. SpongeBob has gone well beyond the kids."

Another Nickelodeon holiday franchise that has exceeded expectations in recent years for Paramount is Dora the Explorer, whose Spanish-speaking cartoon character will be the starlet of the 2004 release "Dora's Christmas." The Peanuts classic, "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown" and Paramount's new line of PBS titles -- including "Booh-Bah Snowmen" and "Cyberchase: Starlight Night" -- are also expected to be big sellers in the kids' segment, said Blythe.

Such television-based DVDs and videos are a great fit for the supermarket channel, which already promotes a family-friendly image, said Bob Alexander, president of Alexander & Associates, a consumer product research and consulting firm based in New York.

"The new television titles like 'Seinfeld,' 'Andy Griffith,' 'Frasier,' 'Taxi' and 'SpongeBob SquarePants' are in a really good category that grocery stores should grab onto," said Alexander. "Motion pictures often have violence and language, but because the TV season releases are from broadcast television, they're more in line with what families deem appropriate, which fits the image that supermarkets want to portray."

Some companies are heavily promoting television movies on DVD, like the 25 Lifetime channel movies that will be released this year by Starlight Home Entertainment, a video distribution company based in Los Angeles.

"So many of the DVDs are action films and are geared toward the male consumer, but women are the key shoppers in supermarkets. So we're pushing movies that are more for women, like those found on Lifetime," said Matt Feinstein, president of Starlight.