Movies!

//**Introduction: **// For years Blockbuster has been the most well-known video store in America, so... why haven't we heard from it in a while? Well it's mainly because it's competitors are getting stronger. Do you remember the last time you walked into a video store, rented out a movie, went home and watched it? I know I don't. What about the last time you saw a movie? Well that's a different story. Now most people use Video on Demand and Netflix to watch new released movies, which is exactly the reason that Blockbuster has gone bankrupt. Americans are actually too lazy to walk or drive to the video store to pick up a movie, so they just get it online, by mail, or by t.v. streaming.

//**History of Blockbuster: **// In the beginning, Blockbuster was incredibly successful. It had 3,425 stores just in the United States. At one point, Blockbuster was like Starbucks is now; one at every corner.  The first Blockbuster store opened October 1985 in Dallas, Texas at the corner of Skillman and Northwest Highway by David Cook, who grew the business and brought it public. After the first few stores opened, he built a $6 million warehouse in Garland, Texas, that could pull and package multiple stores in a day. Blockbuster was a great success because of their ability to customize a store to its neighborhood, loading it up with tons of different movies.  One of Blockbuster’s most well known advertising campaigns was displayed during the 2002 Super Bowl. It starred the voices of Jim Belushi and James Woods, as a rabbit and a guinea pig in a pet shop located across the road from a Blockbuster store.

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//**History of Netflix: **// Netflix gives you movies to stream online, on your game console, or even mailed to your house!  Pretty smart idea. It saves you a trip to the video store and it’s easy and simple to use.  The Netflix website was founded in 1998 with an online version of a more traditional pay-per-rental model (US $4 per rental plus US $2 in postage; late fees applied). Netflix introduced the monthly subscription concept in September, 1999, then dropped the single-rental model in early 2000.  According to Wikipedia, Netflix “has been one of the most successful dot-com ventures. A New York Times article from September, 2002, said that, at the time, Netflix mailed about 190,000 discs per day to its 670,000 monthly subscribers. The company’s published subscriber count increased from one million in the fourth quarter of 2002 to around 5.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2006, to 14 million in March 2010. Netflix’s growth has been fueled by the fast spread of DVD players in households; as of 2004, nearly two-thirds of U.S. homes had a DVD player. The DVD is the most successful product in the history of the U.S. in amount of growth measured by the number of units owned in individual U.S. homes. Netflix capitalized on the success of the DVD and its rapid expansion into U.S. homes, integrating the potential of the Internet and e-commerce to provide services and catalogs that brick and mortar retailers could not compete with. Netflix also operates an online affiliate program which has helped it to build online sales for DVD rentals.” Here's a funny Netflix commercial. media type="youtube" key="442LRu12dFM?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

//**Blockbuster vs. Other Video Stores: **// Even though Blockbuster may be the most successful and well-known of the video stores, it had many competitors including Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery inc. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Hollywood Video was also a video store, and the two were as big competitors as McDonald’s and Burger King are now. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Some people say that Hollywood Video is better because it’s more “honest” and customer service oriented, whereas Blockbuster is manipulative and persuades you too much to buy a movie. Others say the opposite. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> So which do we believe? <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> In this case, there isn’t really a “one is better than the other” situation. It’s basically based on how successful one is and the reviews it gets from costumers. It also depends on how big the franchise is. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Based on this criteria, we would think Blockbuster is better because it is more well-known. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> However, now that both of these stores have closed down due to bankruptcy, it doesn’t really matter which is better or how the workers treat their costumers.

//**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Other Competitors: **//

__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Apple/iTunes: __ <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">On October 12, 2005, Apple introduced iTunes 6.0, which lets you buy and view music videos and TV shows such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Disney Channel shows. Since then, the collection includes content from numerous television networks. The iTunes Store also lets you view Apple's large collection of film trailers. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">As of September 5, 2006, the iTunes Store offers over 550 television shows for download. Additionally, a catalog of 75 feature-length films from Disney-owned studios was introduced. As of April 11, 2007, over 500 feature-length films are available through iTunes. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Originally, films and TV shows were only available to U.S. customers, with the only video content available to non-U.S. customers being music videos and Pixar's short films. This feature is being extended to other countries as licensing issues are resolved. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The best thing about downloading iTunes movies is that you can transfer them to your iPod/iPhone/iPad and watch them on the go.



__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Redbox: __

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Redbox is a company that rents out DVDs through vending machines. It was such a big success that big movie companies such as 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and universal refused to sell DVDs to Red Box until 28 days after their release because they were afraid the company might cannibalize DVD sales.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">There were about 22,000 machines in America as of December 2009. The company's typical self-service vending kiosk combines an interactive touch screen and sign, a robotic disk array systems and web-linked electronic communications. DVDs can be returned the next day to any of the company's kiosks. If the customer doesn't return the DVD 25 days after she/he rents it, the rental fee goes away and the person then owns the movie. A Redbox kiosk rents its average DVD 15 times at an average of $2 per transaction. As of April, 2007, kiosks had averaged 49.1 rentals per day and $37,457 a year in revenue



__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cable TV/HBO: __ <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">HBO launched its satellite-delivered cable service nationwide with the live transmission of the Ali vs. Frazier boxing match ("Thrilla in Manila") in October 1975. The move made HBO the first successful, satellite-delivered pay cable service in the U.S. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The success of HBO in the mid-'70s started the growth of cable TV. New satellite-delivered basic and premium cable TV networks were successfully competing against the major TV networks in the late '70s and early '80s, including movie channels such as Viacom's Showtime, Warner Amex's The Movie Channel, Time/HBO's Cinemax, the Disney Channel and AMC.



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//**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Blockbuster Goes Bankrupt: **// <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">On September 23, 2010, Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, due to challenging losses, $900 million in debt, and strong competition from Redbox, Netflix, and video on-demand. Blockbuster lagged behind these companies in terms of online rentals. Blockbuster says they will keep their 3,300 stores up and running for the time being. However, Blockbuster is expected to close over 900 stores by the end of 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Blockbuster has kept a website similar to Netflix that includes mailing of videos to your home, but it's not nearly as successful as Netflix and On Demand, nor will it ever be.