2009.09.16
Blockbuster kiosks
We've had some discussions here about the growth of the popular Redbox kiosks, where you can rent DVDs for $1 a day. Now, movie rental chain, Blockbuster, is moving into this kiosk niche.
Blockbuster said yesterday that it will close 960 stores and add 10,000 kiosks by next year for renting DVDs and games.
It's unclear which stores would close, and if they will include five Blockbusters throughout the Roanoke Valley and two in Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
According to this story, 18 percent of Blocksbuster's stores are unprofitable.
I'm sort of surprised that only 18% of their stores aren't profitable, given how few people seem to go to a rental store for a movie nowadays. In the time I've lived in the NRV (since 2000) I've seen nearly a half dozen movie rental chain stores close, and no new ones open up. There is a local one in Dublin that took over for a Movie Gallery, but that's all I can think of. Netflix, Redbox, and the online on-demand services have pretty much killed movie rental stores as a viable business venture. Not to mention the $5 or less bin at Wal-Mart to buy DVD's. We rent from time to time, but not nearly as much as we used to. For the cost of our Netflix plan, we can get nearly a dozen movies rented in a month, sometimes more. Plus, we were able to watch about 15 hours of online content, which was very nice. The same budget gets us 4 new releases at a rental store, or 5-6 older movies per month. There really is no comparison. Blockbuster and other chains moved too slowly to realize the change in patterns, and it won't be long before they no longer exist. The same may also be true for cable and other TV providers, because on-demand is the wave of the future. Services like Hulu and other online sources for TV, sports, and news via streaming video are more in line with modern expectations of consumers, in my opinion. I think that began with Tivo and DVR's...allowing people to record broadcast shows and watch them on their time...not the network's time. It all went from there.
Comment by Other John — September 16, 2009 @ 2:34 pm