The other main revenue stream in the US for Supernatural is DVD sales. This has proven to be a nice little money maker for the show. They have been really big since season four. Back when I wrote my article in Variety for Supernatural’s 100th episode, I was given a confirmed number that nearly 2 million DVD sets had been sold for the first four seasons. I don’t know if that was just US or worldwide, but I’m assuming based on those numbers that’s probably only US. Average revenue from a DVD set is $30 (DVD and Blu-Ray). That’s $60 million. Season five has sold at least 500,000 sets since then, and season six so far has sold around 200,000, plus seasons 1 – 4 has sold more as well. Assuming the tally is 750,000 (my numbers only being based on US sales), that’s another $22.5 million.

It should be noted that Supernatural is always among the top selling TV on DVD sets each year, outgrossing most of the big network shows and even top ones on cable. Warner Brothers puts in a lot of promotion for the DVDs, so that that cost bites into a bit of that revenue, but it still earns plenty.

I hear you all, “What about iTunes?” The studio gets most of the revenue, around $1.70 per episode downloaded (around $2.60 or so for HD). However, downloads run in the 70,000 – 100,000 range per episode. That’s about $200,000 average per episode, around $4 to $5 million per season. That isn’t considered a lot by Warner Brothers standards.