[h = 2] The end of an era for the largest video club chain in the world, no surprise [/ h] latest) movie rental chain in the US, that of the famous Blockbuster, "rolled down" and officially.
We say "officially" because their owner company, Dish, has consistently suspended the operation of more and more branches of the chain in the last three years, in a desperate attempt to keep it at a marginal profitability. The last 300 Blockbusters remaining scattered across the United States will all be closed by January, and the chain's mail-order home delivery service will not be available from December.
Blockbusters are the latest potential "big victim" of a radical change in the world of home movie viewing worldwide. With the rapid rise of online rental services such as Netflix and online retailers such as iTunes, movies in mature markets such as the US are now "consumed" almost entirely in the form of files, not optical discs.
Viewers in the US if they want a Blu-ray or DVD movie tend to buy it now, not to rent.
In markets like the Greek one, of course, where economic conditions and network infrastructure differ greatly, perhaps we have not yet reached this point - but we are not far behind that, as the few video clubs renting movies in our country operate with very limited margins and no one knows for how much they will still be able to survive.
The only thing that is certain about this is that domestic entertainment worldwide has not yet found the signs of harmonious coexistence with the cinema industry - hence phenomena such as the blockbuster suspension (which at their best numbered over 9.000 stores).
These served a need that is not satisfactorily covered only by Network Services, if one judges the high rate of illegal downloading of movies from the Internet. With these and with them it remains not just ... foggy landscape in the future disposal of films for the domestic market, but practically undefined.
Web will definitely be. Will it also be attractive to the consumer public - why at the moment in terms of pricing and in terms of image / sound quality, it is not - to expand legally? Or will it be barely commercially "on the surface" while ... "below the surface" will have the illegal but widely accepted form it has today? Μενδωμεν!
source athinorama.gr
We say "officially" because their owner company, Dish, has consistently suspended the operation of more and more branches of the chain in the last three years, in a desperate attempt to keep it at a marginal profitability. The last 300 Blockbusters remaining scattered across the United States will all be closed by January, and the chain's mail-order home delivery service will not be available from December.
Blockbusters are the latest potential "big victim" of a radical change in the world of home movie viewing worldwide. With the rapid rise of online rental services such as Netflix and online retailers such as iTunes, movies in mature markets such as the US are now "consumed" almost entirely in the form of files, not optical discs.
Viewers in the US if they want a Blu-ray or DVD movie tend to buy it now, not to rent.
In markets like the Greek one, of course, where economic conditions and network infrastructure differ greatly, perhaps we have not yet reached this point - but we are not far behind that, as the few video clubs renting movies in our country operate with very limited margins and no one knows for how much they will still be able to survive.
The only thing that is certain about this is that domestic entertainment worldwide has not yet found the signs of harmonious coexistence with the cinema industry - hence phenomena such as the blockbuster suspension (which at their best numbered over 9.000 stores).
These served a need that is not satisfactorily covered only by Network Services, if one judges the high rate of illegal downloading of movies from the Internet. With these and with them it remains not just ... foggy landscape in the future disposal of films for the domestic market, but practically undefined.
Web will definitely be. Will it also be attractive to the consumer public - why at the moment in terms of pricing and in terms of image / sound quality, it is not - to expand legally? Or will it be barely commercially "on the surface" while ... "below the surface" will have the illegal but widely accepted form it has today? Μενδωμεν!
source athinorama.gr