Blockbuster to close last 300 video stores in US
Blockbuster, the video-rental company owned by Dish Network ,is to close its remaining 300 U.S. stores by early January. The chain was once a part of American shopping centres everywhere.
Blockbuster: Last stores to close
Blockbuster will shut the shops and discontinue its DVD-by-mail service by mid-December, Colorado-based Dish said in a statement. Each store has eight to 10 employees and about 2,800 jobs will go. Dish will keep the licensing rights to the Blockbuster brand and use it to sell other services.
“People were waiting for the death knell for that business for many years,” said Matthew Harrigan, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities. “With everything happening on the digital distribution side, it has been long overdue.”
Dish acquired the chain out of bankruptcy in April 2011. It has already divested Blockbuster’s international assets, including operations in the U.K. and Scandinavia. The company has been gradually shutting down the 1,700 stores it acquired.
“This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment,” Dish CEO Joseph Clayton said in today’s statement. “We continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings.”
When the company was spun off by Viacom in 2004, it operated about 9,000 locations -- before streaming video services such as Netflix devastated the industry. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2010.
Dish took over Blockbuster the following year, aiming to use the stores to sell mobile devices that could stream Blockbuster movies. The plans broke down when U.S. regulators didn’t immediately approve a waiver allowing Dish to use its satellite spectrum for terrestrial data and voice transmission.
The Blockbuster brand will continue at Dish through the Blockbuster @Home and Blockbuster on Demand options, which stream movies and videos to televisions, computers and other devices, Dish said.