The movie "Shawshank's Redemption" had a poor box office, but Warner Home Video still shipped 320,000 boxes of rental videotapes of the film to various parts of the United States in 1995, which was a risky act at the time. In the end, the film achieved good results on the film and video rental chart in 1995.
In 1996, WarnerMedia merged with Turner Broadcasting Corporation, and the copyright of "Shawshank's Redemption" was transferred to Warner Bros., a subsidiary of WarnerMedia. In June 1997, the film began to be broadcast regularly on the station, and the cumulative number of broadcasts set a record. Some commentators believed that this was the fundamental reason why "Shawshank's Redemption" was able to gain attention and develop into a cultural phenomenon after the fiasco of the box office.
As of 2013, "Shawshank's Redemption" has been broadcast on 15 basic cable channels with a total broadcast time of 151 hours, second only to "Slim Daddy" in 1993. The movie ranks in the top 15% of the movies with the highest ratings for viewers aged 18 to 49 on the Spike, Up, Sundance TV and Lifetime TV channels. Although there are basically no actresses in the film, the film is also the best-rated film on the OWN Network, which is mainly for female audiences.
In 2014, the "Wall Street Journal" estimated that "Shawshank's Redemption" had earned US$100 million based on the share of the filmmakers' income from box office, home media sales, and television broadcasting rights. Jeff Baker, then executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, said that home media sales of movies have earned about $80 million.
