Physical DVD Rentals Are Really Over: Is Linear TV Next?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 15, 2024

Looks like the final vestige of physical home entertainment -- by the way the DVD rental business -- is really going away. Should we have expected more? Maybe some linear TV networks are thinking: are we next?

In the wake of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment moving into more stringent bankruptcy proceedings (Chapter 7), the company’s Redbox network of 24,000 DVD rental kiosks and its streaming services will shut down.

Chicken Soup closed a deal to buy Redbox -- an already struggling business -- in 2020. The deal was then valued at $370 million, but came with $359.9 million in debt. More than 1,000 people -- all of the company will be furloughed, with apparently no pay even for work they have already done. It's been more than two decades since the Blockbuster Video physical retail store operation closed down officially.

For many this is beyond long in coming -- apart from specialized physical rental services that remain like the Los Angeles-based Vidiots Foundation, which caters to independent movie aficionados, and also offers screenings.  

So, what’s next, as in other media platforms on the rocks? Certainly, there has been a call that linear TV networks are seeing the end of the video highway down the road. 

This comes as mid-size cable TV network groups looking to make their big CTV transition continue to struggle with digital/streaming operations.

For its part Redbox also had a streaming-online business. And looking way back Blockbuster Video also attempted to start up its own streaming service during its waning days. (It also started up its own mail DVD services to compete then with early days of Netflix as well as a growing Redbox.

After trending down starting in the early 2000s, Blockbuster Video filed for bankruptcy in 2010 after losing more than one billion dollars.

More late-to-market traditional legacy media platforms -- desperate to accelerate into new, cool technologies -- will probably be the first to go.

And, yes, this includes businesses large and small -- which is why so much attention has gone into the prospects of late-to-market premium streaming services.

Trouble is that even financial sick companies like Chicken Soup for the Soul need a lot more....