There's no rewinding for Blockbuster

Once dominant rental giant struggling in digital world

There's no rewinding for Blockbuster

5 July 2010 19:43 GMT / By Paul Lamkin

Blockbuster, once the cream of video rentals on both sides of the pond, has come a cropper in the digital age and its stock has fallen so low that it has been de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.

The former rental champion has struggled to compete with the likes of Netflix in the States and Lovefilm over here in the UK, who offer customers loaned DVDs to their doors without even needing to leave the house.

Add to this the digital rental services offered by the likes of the two rivals mentioned, and also Blinkbox and iTunes, and you're looking at a very crowded marketplace - one in which Blockbuster has failed to keep up with, despite having its own forays into postal and digital movie renting.

Econsultancy reports that Blockbuster is $1 billion in the red and is in severe danger of going under.

There will of course be sadness if such a long standing brand was to fall victim of the digital age, but people with longer memories will also remember Blockbuster appearing on these shores back in the early 1990s, buying out Ritz, and putting many local video shops out of business.

We contacted Blockbuster UK for a comment, but were denied a comment and pointed towards Corporate Communications in the US of A. As of yet, we've received no word.

Are you a Blockbuster customer any more? Or is all your video renting done in cyberspace or via the post? Let us know how you get your movie fix using the comments below.

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Via: econsultancy.com

Full tags
Home Cinema, Blockbuster, Lovefilm, Netflix, iTunes

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