The Simpsons - Are the sales really that bad? No, they aren’t

For those of you hoping for good news, we're sorry, instead you'll find the op-ed piece below.

Al Jean, showrunner on The Simpsons made news back in April when he tweeted that they wouldn't release any more seasons of the show on DVD or Blu-ray. At the time that didn't make sense to us, so we went digging and guess what? It still doesn't make sense.

The Simpsons wrapped their 26th season in May, and have amassed a huge following over the years. Fans want to own the show on DVD, and Fox has released seasons 1-17, and season 20 on the format, starting in 2001 with the release of season 1. There's a gap between seasons 17 and 20 because Fox released season 20 on DVD and BD shortly after it aired in 2010, and they haven't gone back to fill in the hole, and it appears they never would.

It's no secret that DVD sales have dropped off, with many turning to streaming formats (also, because most of the good stuff has already been released), but it's a bit shocking that sales of The Simpsons would get to the point where they can't be released. The past few years has seen the rise of "Manufacture-on-Demand" (MOD) releases for shows that aren't popular enough for pressed discs, but still have enough of a following to turn a profit for the studios. Fox has released a number of shows on the MOD format, using it for shows that weren't as successful as they had hoped, but still want to release for fans. This is definitely an avenue that they could explore for The Simpsons, but they really shouldn't have to.

The fact is, The Simpsons DVDs are selling well enough that they should continue to be released on DVD. Season 17, which was released on December 2, 2014 has sold 55,032 copies on DVD, and 11,421 copies on Blu-ray according to Videoscan numbers (week ending July 12), and that's just for North America (don't forget The Simpsons is a global brand). I asked a studio representative at another company what he thought of those numbers and his response was "We would kill to have titles that sold like that." Yes, those numbers are approximately half of the sales of season 16, but the numbers are still excellent given the market today. I think there's more to this story than "sales numbers are poor." Maybe their sales expectations are too high and they would rather make no money off DVD sales than less money.

Something isn't adding up here because 66,000+ units of a show shouldn't be considered "poor sales." Fox, or Gracie films (whichever controls the DVD releases) should release this on DVD, release it as a MOD title, or they should license it to a third party; apparently there are companies willing to kill for those numbers.

If someone from the show wants to reach out and correct any of this information, we'd be more than happy to include it here.