Viacom to shed Blockbuster... (1 Viewer)

[MikeDE]

In my small city, BB is about the only place to get anything other than the "hits". The few mom & pops are not going to get Criterions, unusual or older movies. They don't have the space or interest. BB isn't perfect, but for a lot of us it's the only place with any selection. I can't afford to purchase every film I want to see, and it's easier to walk into BB than to wade through the online rental sites and wait for shipment. If you don't like BB, good for you. But don't celebrate that those of us in smaller towns will not have easier access to anything other than major releases.

Mike

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Guys, Viacom had been thinking of spinning off Blockbuster for the past 6 or 7 years. The video rental business has declined over the past couple of years and Blockbuster has been struggling. The declining value of Blockbuster caused Viacom to take a charge of $1.3 billion and that convinced Viacom that the time is not just right but overdue.

 

[Gary Seven]

Well, as one of those that has been around since 1981 renting videos, I've seen the industry go through it's changes. One of those changes was the increasing cost of renting videos. I remember when I paid two dollars to rent a video. Adjust for inflation and that is almost as much as what we are paying now. That was okay back then when a new release video would cost 100 dollars. 100 DOLLARS!! For VHS!!!

Fast forward to the present where we now have DVDs that average 24.95 MSRP. Of course you can find them for around 19.95 everywhere. And you know BB gets a great deal on their DVDs based on sheer volume. However, in this change of cheaper home entertainment, BB still retains the pricing structure based on an outdated model. Why pay 5 dollars to rent a movie when for an additonal 10 dollars I can buy it?

Want to bring the customers back? Revise the business model based on today's market. Lower the prices on rentals to make renting a viable option again.

Whoops... there I go making sense again.

 

[Kwang Suh]

You're making the assumption that it's the cost of the videos that drives the price of rentals, when IMHO, it's a bunch of other costs (esp. fixed costs, such as land, heat, water) that is mostly the determining factor in the rental price, which is why BB is screwed.

 

[Al.Anderson]

Since no one mentioned this I have to chime in, I detest Blockbuster for their late fees. At one point it cost more to be a day late than it did to rent the movie in the first place. Other shops, those Mom & Pops, would generally just tack on a new rental period, not BB. I tried to just shift to the M&Ps, but they never had anything that I wanted to see. In the end I forced myself to not rent at all - then came Netflix! (In fact, I think I remember reading an early Netflix interview with the founder, and I'm pretty sure he came up with the idea after suffering BB late fees.)

 

[Paul_Scott]

the first time i ever saw a Blockbuster was in the Atlanta area in 87.
i thought it was the coolest store, adn when i moved back to Buffalo later that yr, i was jumping for joy when i found out that Blockbuster was going to be opening a few locations there.
they were the first video store i had ever seen with a whole section devoted to more obscure foreign films as well as having an 'esoteric' section that included many silent movies, along with giving me my first opportunity to see the fabled, mythical Max Fleischer Superman cartoons.
they just had the most diverse stock i ever saw.
but by the next few years, the major local video chain there just blew them away in that area, especially in regards to cheaper, older b movies and exploitation fare.
you could find something like Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, or episodes of The Avengers or, or just about any obscure film that got a legitimate release, where Blockbuster was going strictly for the middle of the road soccer mom crowd who thought that Night Of The Living Dead was 'eclectic'.
a couple years later Blockbuster bought them out and quickly cleaned the shelves of all the titles that had made that store unique and replaced them with multiple copies of the Lion King and whatnot.

i've rented from them about 3 or 4 times in the last 2 yrs, and that pace won't pick up.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

The video rental business model is DEAD! Long live Netflix (and others of its ilk)!