HBO sells documentary DVDs on demand

Company to release 10 MOD docs by year end

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 10/10/2008

OCT. 10 | HBO Home Entertainment is boosting its documentary DVD output through manufacturing-on-demand.

Documentaries are popular content on HBO’s cable channels, but the niche category can get crowded out on retail shelves by more mainstream fare. To efficiently distribute this content, HBO in June began offering a number of docs through Amazon.com’s CreateSpace manufacturing-on-demand service. HBO can produce the exact amount of stock for titles per customer order without risking heavy retail returns.

These titles can be purchased at Amazon.com or HBO.com.

HBO expects to have released 10 manufactured-on-demand docs by the end of 2008. The next ones are the Oct. 14 releases of Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery, about the burial grounds for U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Have You Seen Andy?, a look at an unsolved kidnapping.

“Have You Seen Andy? debuted back in 2007 [on HBO channel Cinemax], and this is a title that we could not have brought to DVD,” said Henry McGee, HBO president. “These are really outstanding documentaries, but the [traditional] physical distribution to retail would make the economics very challenging. We really see this as a way of how to handle things going forward. Manufacturing-on-demand lets us open up the number of titles we can do.”

Due to its bigger embrace of widening release strategies, the company recently changed its name from HBO Home Video to HBO Home Entertainment.

However, the label is not abandoning traditional distribution, as it’s backing a number of fourth-quarter DVD titles that will be shipped widely to retail. Highlights include complete series gift sets of The Sopranos, streeting on Nov. 11, and The Wire and Deadwood, both bowing on Dec. 9. HBO will debut Band of Brothers on Blu-ray Disc on Nov. 11.