The era of store-rental videos is over. Blockbuster is officially closing.
Blockbuster brought stay-at-home movie watching to America but the company announced on Wednesday that it will close its last 300 stores by January and its DBD-by-mail business will also come to an end in mid-December, USA Today reports.
"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," Joseph Clayton, CEO of Dish Network, Blockbuster's parent company said according to USA Today. "Despite our closing of the physical distribution elements of the business, we continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings."
Despite closing, satellite pay-TV service Dish Network will hold the licensing rights to Blockbuster and its video library.
"Blockbuster has no brand," Dan Rayburn, an analyst at StreamingMedia.com told USA Today. "Consumers stopped thinking about the brand a long time ago. Why did they take so long to close?"
Dish will focus on a Blockbuster @Home business in which movies will be streamed for customers at an extra cost. Blockbuster on Demand, available to the general public, will also continue. "The quantity of movies (for Blockbuster On Demand) is so limited," Rayburn said. "Some of them are not even on (high-definition). It's not even a real service. You can't put it up there with Vudu or Netflix or Hulu."
Dish obtained Blockbuster in April 2011 for $320 million in an auction. Dish wanted to use the stores to offer rentals that would complement Dish's other video offerings in an effort to cross-market. However competition from Netflix, YouTube, Redbox and other streaming and rental services was too much.
Stores closed throughout the country and Blockbuster's rental library was cut down by half. Blockbuster's revenue fell by $120 million within a year.
Now Blockbuster if officially coming to an end.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
