Blockbuster CFO Tom Casey can say whatever he wants, but to push aside the threat of digital downloads altogether just seems silly. At a recent conference, said bigwig was in attendance to pump up his company, noting that DVD / Blu-ray rentals were still tops in its mind. He pointed out that it's still supporting a $36 billion industry, while the VOD market was remarkably tiny in comparison. He also noted that same-store revenue had recently risen 9%, and while it has been taking big losses of late, he still expects to pull a profit for the year. In related news, further price hikes on rentals could be coming as Blockbuster spends to freshen up stores, add stock and insert
kiosks to draw more folks in. We still find it tough to believe that relying on a
B&M model in a mail-order / download-at-will world is the
best thing to do, but to each his own, we guess.
[Image courtesy of
Street Knowledge]
Read - Blockbuster CFO speaks
Read - Blockbuster could raise rental rates
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jeff @ Sep 24th 2008 11:46PM
Too bad they dont have kiosks that you can return your mailers and get a movie out. I suppose they would have to be pretty good size. Maybe fast food restaurant style shops with just new movie and tv releases.
The Pepto Pimp @ Sep 25th 2008 12:11PM
They do have kiosks like that. Half of them are blue and about 4 feet tall. They have a logo with an eagle's profile on them. Old folks call these kiosks "mail boxes," and you can find them on street corners all over the USA.
Mystery @ Sep 25th 2008 12:50AM
As a former employee (manager) for 8 years, I can say that corporate-management (RDO and higher) has no idea what they are doing.
They feel that they can cut CSR hours, lower raises to 15 cents a year, and still keep "high quality" employees that go out of their way for customers.
BBV has turned into a revolving door the last few years I was there.
A person would get hired, realize how much work had to be done (due to low staff) and end up leaving 3 months later.
An average store would go through 8 new employees in a year.
Now with the economy the way it is, I've heard my old store is doing about 12% less revenue, only has 2 manager, and now closes at 10pm instead of midnight.
Thank God I was able to get out of there 3 years ago.
Colin @ Sep 25th 2008 5:09AM
They should set up a delivery service with online ordering so you can order from work and have it delivered when you are home or in your mailbox when you get home. Blueray files are huge, if you can provide the convenience of pizza delivery for movies you're onto a winner!!
stub2k2 @ Sep 25th 2008 6:16AM
really I see no problem with the B&M model. its the pricing that is way out of wack. personally the best solution I have seen is the Redbox style rental kiosks. $1 per night about all I feel like paying and rarely do i want a movie for a week at a time like Blockbuster mandates. I may be in the minority here but I rent a movie the night I intend to watch it not 6 days prior. Netflix and the like are ok but turn around times of 3 days (1 shipping 1 watching 1 returning) make it hard to get your money's worth unless you are a very ritualistic movie watcher or are compareing to the rediculous prices of Block(wallet)buster.
Jon @ Sep 25th 2008 7:12AM
For me BB is by FAR the best value .. it may be because i was grandfathered in since ive been around for awhle ... For $21.99 a month i get 3 moves mailed to me and then trade those in for 3 new moves (Always Blu ray) anytime i wish at the store (No Limit on my plan) ..Plus i get 2 free game /movie coupons emailed to me ea month .. if everyone got the same deal no one would complain
Johnny Neat @ Sep 25th 2008 10:45AM
Sadly I have the same deal situation and we've recently lost one of our rental "whatever you want free" coupons. I'm beginning to experience queue idling again and BM stores apparently across the board are lacking immensely in the Blu-ray or game rental departments from what they claim and advertise.
BB has been on Blu-ray's jock from the get go pretty much and they still lack a decent Hi-Def library. So much for promoting a format they appear to half heartedly support. I know it will take time to catch up due to movies not yet appearing on Blu-ray or due to how voluminous a venture it all is to rebuild a film library, but why doesn't BB have any and all recently released movies on Blu-ray? Very very suspect and very very cheap. Pretty annoying. Plus they might as well drop their game rentals if they are only sure to have say a Star Wars game on launch but Brothers in Arms a week later to never. Seriously annoying.
In the end and currently, Netflix is losing for me only because of wait time, but then again BB Online has been slacking regardless which makes it almost like not having a BM option, speed of service and or Hi-Def movie watching options. If only I could get Netflix & Gamefly at around what I pay for BBO service now.
John B @ Sep 25th 2008 8:29AM
"but to push aside the threat of digital downloads altogether just seems silly."
No, it does not! When are you download fanboys going to realize that digital downloads are currently NOT a threat to physical media? With more and more ISPs enabling draconian bandwidth caps and with broadband still far from reaching the majority of people (at least in the U.S.), downloads are nowhere close to threatening physical media, even in rental, no matter how often Engadget and its readers try to make it look differently.
eng050599 @ Sep 25th 2008 11:25AM
Except there's one problem with your statement. The "720p" movies from Apple have worse picture quality than an upscaled DVD. The only reason why Apple can get a HD movie into 5GB is by compressing the hell out of it. Resolution should not be the true measure of HD, picture quality should. The side by side comparisons of the download services have consistantly shown that their picture quality is nowhere near that of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, and in many cases upscaled DVD.
squiggleslash @ Sep 25th 2008 11:49AM
eng050599 - The reviews I've read have generally described Apple's HD as excellent.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/13/sizing-up-apple-tvs-hd/
Sounds like you have a gripe.
John B @ Sep 25th 2008 5:23PM
Oh, really?
Time-Warner is testing 40GB caps.
Cox has a maximum 60/15 cap. http://www.cox.com/lasvegas/highspeedinternet/pricing.asp
Telus has a 60 GB consumer cap. http://broadbandreports.net/faq/telus/all#10282
Shaw Cable - 100 GB
Bell Canada recently got into a lot of hot water for proposing bandwidth caps on their *resellers*!
And you are completely ignoring other functions like Internet TV, which is starting to take off. If people start to use their PC as their TV and they like to watch a lot of it, you can bet that there will be issues.
I love how people talk about the "now" when it comes to bandwidth caps but never take into consideration the future.