# Blockbuster Stores Are Officially Closing, Mail Service Axed Too



## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

Just like that, it’s over.

Remember the days of getting in your car to head to the local Blockbuster on a Friday night? List in hand, you'd circle the parking lot looking for a good spot. If the weather was bad, you’d make a mad dash into a store that was sure to be filled with a sea of people...old and young alike...small kids running through the aisles. It was at that point that you began the game of hunting for your evening’s entertainment. One entire side of the store had a wall covered with copies of new and popular releases. To see if rental copies were available, you had to lift and move display cases hoping for the best. Of course older and obscure movies were more of a challenge. The stores usually had one (at best, two) copies of these movies. First you had find the row in the store matching a specific genre, be it horror, comedy, drama, or action. Assuming you picked the right row (don’t forget, some movies bridge genres making it a total guessing game), you then had to hunt for your title and brace for the moment of truth: In stock? Or out of stock. Any experienced Blockbuster customer knows that this is when a list came in handy, because more times than not a backup movie was necessary. The end of a Blockbuster visit usually involved a lengthy check-out line snaking through shelves loaded with candy and packaged popcorn.








Those days are now officially gone.

Three years ago The Wall Street Journal reported that Blockbuster’s once proud empire had officially cracked. Swimming in the depths of nearly $900 million in debt, the company revealed it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Part of their restructuring plan was to shutter up to 1000 brick-and-mortar locations (leaving roughly 2,400 stores in operation) and begin the process of emphasizing digital distribution and Redbox-esque kiosk rental stands. We have since watched the vast majority of those remaining stores close.

Yesterday, Blockbuster (owned by the DISH Network Corporation) announced the official end to the era of its brick-and-motar location dominance. The company will close it’s remaining 300-plus stores and distribution centers by early january 2014. It is also shutting-down its mail-DVD service by mid-December 2013. This is all coming on the heels of an 18 month long slash-parade in which Blockbuster has divested assets in the United States and ceased operations in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," said Joseph P. Clayton, DISH president and chief executive officer. "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."

The Blockbuster name will continue to live as DISH has announced it will retain licensing rights to the iconic brand and the company’s video library. DISH will continue to operate Blockbuster’s @Home service for DISH customers and its general market Blockbuster On Demand streaming service. The Blockbuster @Home DISH service offers 15 movie channels including STARZ, EPIX, Sony Movie Channel, and the Hallmark Movie Channel in addition to nearly 20,000 movies and television shows available for streaming.

Unfortunately, this is one more nail-in-the-coffin for physical media. Tell us how you feel about this!

_Image Credit: BBB.org_


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

*Re: Blockbuster Stores Are Officially Closing, Mail Service Axed too*

I noticed this the other day. We had maybe 3 or 4 blockbusters within a very short drive along with Hollywood Studios but slowly over the years they all closed except for 1 blockbuster.

This past week while driving I noticed the big "This store closing" sign. I guess it is the sign of the times with the push toward streaming and the competition with redbox..

To be honest, once netflix, hulu, crackle, and others started being available, I stop going to blockbuster. .


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## TheLaw612 (Jan 17, 2012)

*Re: Blockbuster Stores Are Officially Closing, Mail Service Axed too*

The Blockbuster near my work shut down a couple years ago and I was able to snag a ton of blurays for $5 a piece...It was pretty sweet. I thought they had all shutdown until I saw one the other weekend when I was visiting some friends in VA.


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## eecyclone (Jun 24, 2013)

*Re: Blockbuster Stores Are Officially Closing, Mail Service Axed too*

This is sad to me. I grew up going to blockbuster on Friday nights for the movie rental and occasionally bought used N64 games (my first video game console).


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

I am not surprised in the least bit with the brick and mortar stores closing, especially with all the streaming that is going on. I have seen a LOT of B&M movie rental places close. We are down to a mere single Red Box in the town we live in. In the city where my office is located, we have had several close up, including Blockbuster. I think there is one left. We don't use it because we can only keep a Blu-ray disc for one night... and we live 20 miles away... so I am not making a 40 mile round trip (about an hour when all said and done) on a Saturday to return a movie I rent on Friday afternoon. Not only that, we usually go out an eat on Friday nights, so I usually don't take time to watch a movie. I would rather watch it when it is more convenient. So... I pay a little more and download it via Dish Network... or wait until I get up a bunch I want to rent and sign up for Netflix for a few months.


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## B- one (Jan 13, 2013)

Well at least we can get some deals on movies. We only have one Blockbuster around us anymore. Luckily we have Family Video they seem to be going strong. I usually by my blurays there for 11.95 3-4 weeks after release,they are in great shape and come in the original package unlike Blockbuster. I do think Blockbuster was overpriced on rentals we never rented anything from them.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Blockbuster closed all their stores here in Canada 4 years ago and it was already apparent that this was only the beginning of a trend because shortly after that Rogers closed all their stores as well. There is only a small handful of smaller independently owned movie rental places here now and slowly they are closing as well. I used to rent many movies from BB but their cost was becoming silly as a blueray rental was $7 and I could buy it for al little as $22 back then now they are even less.


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

It's a shame to see this happening but also not surprising. I grew up within about a 5 minute walk from a local video store and later on a Blockbuster a couple doors down. Ah, the days of 5-day VHS and Super Nintendo game rentals lddude:


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

It does not surprise me. In this day and time they are expensive compared to Redbox. Two stores closed by my house and the others are too far to rent.


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## JBrax (Oct 13, 2011)

Pretty sad really. I had some good memories of hanging around waiting on someone to return that must have new release. It's a different world now.


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

I'm a huge fan of physical media because of the quality it delivers. Give me streaming at blu-ray quality and I'd jump on that bandwagon in a heart beat! I hope that rental options (read: Redbox) doesn't completely disappear.


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## JBrax (Oct 13, 2011)

Todd Anderson said:


> I'm a huge fan of physical media because of the quality it delivers. Give me streaming at blu-ray quality and I'd jump on that bandwagon in a heart beat! I hope that rental options (read: Redbox) doesn't completely disappear.


I completely agree with you. I really like collecting things and enjoy building a physical library. Owning a digital file just isn't the same for me.


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## Sean O (Nov 29, 2009)

When I was young my brothers and I used to ride to the Block Buster by my house to rent the latest Sega or Playstation games and try to beat them before the return date. Now when I buy a game I do not have the same motivation that I used to too beat the Campaign mode, lol. Sometimes I never finish.


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## kingnoob (Mar 12, 2013)

Very sad news, I used to enjoy going to blockbuster & Hollywood videos til they both closed.
B_buster was overpriced though.
Local family video is too far away 6miles+


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## flamingeye (Apr 2, 2008)

I didn't use Blockbuster much there was always cheaper places to go then Netflix came and I've been using their mail serves ever since , I stream some but Blu-ray is still superior in my opinion and the mail serves still comes out cheaper in the long run , well for me anyways it does


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## fschris (Oct 31, 2009)

asere said:


> It does not surprise me. In this day and time they are expensive compared to Redbox. Two stores closed by my house and the others are too far to rent.


what Is the deal with redbox... every time I go to wally world or Walgreens there is a line 5-8 deep.


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## JBrax (Oct 13, 2011)

fschris said:


> what Is the deal with redbox... every time I go to wally world or Walgreens there is a line 5-8 deep.


It's all about the $$$. Rentals are ridiculously cheap.


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

Redbox is only cheap if you do it for one night. Otherwise it can be more expensive than bb or hollywood. I dont rent mainly because its cheaper in the long run to own the movies rather than rent it once or twice, or go to the movies for same cost.

Shame to see another one bite the dust. But the expense on our part became too great.


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## rdcollns (Oct 13, 2013)

I love redbox because for the cost of one $30 bluray I can rent 20 movies. It is only $0.50 more than my local library who doesn't carry bluray, and we have a box on my way to work for picking up and dropping off. 

On the Blockbuster front, the prices go down fast right before the doors close. I was able to get several good new bluray movies for just a couple bucks each.


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

It is a little concerning to see Blockbuster close stores and scuttle their stand alone kiosks. Let's hope that Redbox continues to offer their kiosk solution for the foreseeable future.


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