"True Blood: The Complete First Season" DVD has sold an astonishing 1 million copies

By Maxine Shen

THE "True Blood: The Complete First Season" DVD has sold an astonishing 1 million copies, proving that HBO really does have a hit show on its hands.

In the four weeks since its release, the five-disc box set has netted $35 million in total sales according to the-numbers.com.

This puts it in the No. 1 spot for TV DVD sales for the week of June 14. Coming in at a distant second is the fourth season DVD of "Weeds," with 334,000 copies moved after two weeks of sales. Interest in "True Blood," which stars Anna Paquin as a mind-reading waitress in love with a vampire (played by real-life love Stephen Moyer), is at an all-time high now.

Even with the last game of the NBA Finals as timeslot competition, last Sunday's episode of the sex- and blood-filled series reached 3.4 million viewers, representing a drop of only 300,000 from its second season premiere airing on June 14.

The average 3.7 million people who tuned in to the "True Blood" season premiere at 9 p.m. - coupled with an additional 1.4 million viewers for the 11 p.m. encore - made it the most-watched original airing of an HBO show since the 2007 series finale of "The Sopranos."

(c) 2009 The New York Post. http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/132221523