So, That’s The End Of Blockbuster In Canada! | CHFI. Blockbuster Canada’s remaining stores are set to close soon and 2,300 more jobs at the national movie rental chain are about to disappear, victims of the digital movie revolution. The receiver in charge of selling Blockbuster Canada wants a court order to shut down the movie rental company’s 253 remaining retail locations, saying Wednesday it had been unable to find a buyer willing to invest in the business.
There were a total of 14 offers submitted, including eight that contemplated acquiring all of Blockbuster Canada’s assets, but all of them included conditions or other problems that weren’t acceptable to the receiver. About 150 Blockbuster Canada stores were closed in June, as it grappled with a shift to digital downloads, a tepid economy and new ownership of the U.S. Blockbuster chain which left the Canadian chain in debt. The receiver said Wednesday the closure process should begin in the next few days, and existing gift cards and rewards programs will no longer be accepted. U.K. Say Goodbye to Blockbuster in 2011. Blockbuster was once the mecca of rentals. While indie metropolitan stores may have always reigned supreme in terms of stock and scope, Blockbuster was the "it" locale for the rest of the country. It wasn't so long ago when stores would be packed on a Friday evening as people rushed to grab the new releases, and shelves stocked sure-to-be-there bets -- films that weren't guaranteed because no one was going to the store, but because they'd have huge piles of discs.
Now Blockbuster is a movie ghost town. After the onslaught of Netflix and Redbox, the end has been near for a while. Blockbuster is near the top of 24/7 Wall St's new list of brands expected to disappear by the end of 2011. It just goes to show you how much of any movie business relies on the casual moviegoer, not the eager-to-watch-everything cinephile.
With streaming, members were offered the immediacy mail could never provide, popping the last piece into Blockbuster's death puzzle. Blockbuster Bankrupt: Video Chain Files For Bankruptcy Protection. NEW YORK — Blockbuster Inc., once the dominant movie rental company in the U.S., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, reeling from mounting losses, rising debt and competitors that have better catered to Americans' changed media habits. For now, Blockbuster will continue to operate its 3,300 U.S. stores, although analysts expect hundreds of them to close under new owners led by billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The Dallas-based company has about 25,500 employees, including 7,500 full-time workers. The prepackaged bankruptcy case, in the works since the spring, marks the end of an era that Blockbuster and its gold-and-blue torn ticket logo helped establish.
Americans used to troop to video stores on Friday for the latest movies. Now, they're skipping Blockbuster and watching movies from DVD-by-mail services like Netflix Inc., cable video on demand and Redbox vending machines. This marks the second time that Icahn has tried to turn around Blockbuster. DVD sales in decline and likely to die out as internet and Digiboxes take over. By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 17:17 GMT, 5 May 2010 Death of the DVD: Sales are in decline and are likely to fall off in coming years Sales of DVD players have fallen to their lowest level for seven years, leading experts to warn that the technology could soon die out. The rising popularity of internet downloads and digital video recorders has seen a switch to watching films and TV series virtually, rather than keeping a hard copy. The trend could see the once dominant DVD go the way of the tape deck, vinyl LP and VHS player.
At the peak of the format's popularity in 2007, 7.3million DVD players and recorders were sold in the UK. That fell last year to 5.7million - the lowest figure since 2003, figures from market analysts Mintel show. Sales are surviving thanks to the rise of Blu-Ray - the high- definition version of DVDs - and the fact that DVD players now cost less than £20 in supermarkets.
But plummeting prices mean the industry is less profitable. The video store’s last stand. The Video Underground, on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, has a name that sounds as if the store has been prepared for a moment of apocalypse since it opened. Although the shop sits at pavement level between a takeout Chinese joint and a bike shop, the moniker evokes an image more like a fallout shelter in a retail disaster zone. It’s a name of resistance and revolution -- here’s a capitalist venture, impossibly enough, kept thriving by proles -- and suggests a last stand, a place where the very notion of the video store has to go to evade complete obsolescence: a bunker whose contents are samizdat. The store’s owner, Evonne Hyla Wetzner, says she chose the name because it seemed radical. Now it just seems prescient. Brick-and-mortar video stores continue to vanish -- in Greater Boston and all over the country. In the last few years, Videosmith has closed all but its Lexington location.
As millions of renters and countless mail carriers know, Netflix mails titles directly to you.