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In 2002, Blockbuster acquired Movie Trading Company, a Dallas chain that buys, sells, and trades movies and games, to study potential business models for DVD and game trading. Also that year, it acquired Gamestation, a 64-store UK computer and console games retailer chain, and purchased DVD Rental Central for $1 million, an Arizona father-and-son online DVD-rental company with about ten thousand subscribers. DVD Rental Central would eventually become Blockbuster Online.[61]
A billion-dollar campaign called "Total Access" was introduced in 2007 as a strategy against Netflix. Through Blockbuster Online, customers could rent a DVD online and receive a new movie for free when they returned it to a Blockbuster store. While it was a major success every free movie cost the company two dollars, but the hope was that it would attract enough new subscribers to cover the loss. Netflix felt threatened, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings approached Antioco with a suggestion to buy Blockbuster's online business. In return, a new system would be introduced where customers could return their movies to a Blockbuster store. Before the deal could be realized, board member Carl Icahn intervened, refusing to let the company lose more money through Total Access. Antioco was pushed out in July and replaced with James Keyes, who rejected Hastings' proposal, raised the price of online DVD rentals and put an end to the free movie deal. As a consequence, Blockbuster Online's previously massive growth quickly stopped.[70] Antioco's departure reportedly also involved continued controversy over his compensation. He left with a $24.7 million severance package.[71]
On July 2, 2007, the company named James W. Keyes, former president and CEO of 7-Eleven, as the new chairman and CEO. He introduced a new business strategy that included enhancements to existing stores. The following month in August, Blockbuster acquired Movielink for $6.6 million, forecasting a shift to streaming video.[73] Movielink was an online video service that allowed customers to download movie rentals from a library of over 6,000 films, created in 2002 by five major studios including Warner Bros, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Universal Studios.[74] The move gave Blockbuster the opportunity to move away from the unprofitable Total Access (DVD-by-mail) service in favor of online streaming. Despite growing competition from Netflix and Redbox, the company downplayed the threat, choosing instead to focus on Apple and Walmart as their primary competition.[75]
In March 2010, Blockbuster began "Additional Daily Rates", or "ADRs", for rentals not returned by their due date in the United States, having already used this procedure in other countries such as the UK for many years. An ADR was charged for each day a member kept the rental beyond the rental terms. On March 12, 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Blockbuster's independent registered public accounting firm, issued its audit opinion disclosing substantial doubt about Blockbuster's ability to continue as a going concern. This report was included in Blockbusters's 10-K SEC filing. On March 17, 2010, Blockbuster issued a bankruptcy warning after continued drops in revenue threatened its ability to service its nearly $1 billion ($1.32 billion in 2022) debt load. By April 1, 2010, Carl Icahn had resigned from Blockbuster's board of directors and sold nearly all his remaining Blockbuster stock.[83] Blockbuster paired up with Time Warner to have Warner Bros. movies made available in Blockbuster stores on the DVD release date and not be subject to a four-week delay.[citation needed] Similar agreements were also made with Universal and 20th Century Fox.
Keyes was replaced by Michael Kelly under the new title of Blockbuster's president. On August 31, 2011, the liquidators announced the closure of the remaining 253 Canadian stores and shutting of the entire Canadian unit.[96] In September 2011, it was announced that Blockbuster and Dish Network would launch a new service called Blockbuster Movie Pass that would compete with Netflix. For US$10 per month the members would have access to both a streaming service and movies and games-by-mail. The package was only available for subscribers of Dish Network's pay-TV service, and it eventually folded.[97][98]
When a title was no longer a new release, each store would retain a few copies of it and typically sell off the rest as "previously viewed" for discounted prices.[139] Older movies would be re-categorized as "Blockbuster Favorite" titles and placed in a different area of the store.[140] Most Blockbuster locations also accepted trade-ins of used movies, TV shows, and games.[141]
Blockbuster Express was a movie-rental kiosk brand sublicensed for use by licensee NCR Corporation. In 2011, nearly 10,000 Blockbuster Express kiosks were in operation.[145][146] Apart from the license to use the Blockbuster brand name, Blockbuster Express kiosks are unrelated to Blockbuster LLC, its stores, its DVD-by-mail service, or its online streaming service.
Blockbuster was the largest video rental chain in the country, but finances were not good enough due to high rental prices. Lojas Americanas, the largest Brazilian department store, acquired half of the shares and now it is named under "Americanas Express Blockbuster". The store layout was similar to a regular American store with a Game Rush, but instead of games it offers electronics goods like computers and DVD players, groceries like candies and microwave popcorn, and even toys from Mattel and Hasbro's board games. In January 2007, when Blockbuster had 127 stores across Brazil, it sold its Brazilian stake for $87.4 million ($119 million in 2022) and gave Lojas Americanas exclusive rights to the Blockbuster brand in the country for 20 years. The average store has an interior on about 400 m2, where 80-100 m2 is dedicated to movies.[173][174]
Blockbuster came to Denmark in 1996 with the acquisition of the 29 Christianshavn video stores.[179] In 2009 they were on its peak with 72 stores across the country.[180] Blockbuster Video Denmark sold the rights for the Blockbuster brand to the Danish telecommunications corporation TDC in 2013, excluding the 46 remaining brick and mortar stores which continued as RecycleIT A/S, diversifying in refurbishing and reselling consumer electronics in addition sale and rental of games and movies.[79][181] The original goal was to rename all the stores before July 1, 2014, when TDC would get the exclusive rights to the brand name in Denmark, but only 12 of them had been renamed at the end of June and RecycleIT A/S filed for bankruptcy the same year.[182][183] The 12 RecycleIT stores were bought by the company Blue City.[184] The new owners planned to gradually phase out game and movie sales and rental within 2016, but due to the fast changes in the market it happened almost immediately after the takeover, and seven of the stores, therefore, closed in 2015. In 2017, the five remaining ones had started to make some profit, and focus exclusively on second-hand consumer electronics[185]
However, the Blockbuster On Demand service is still active in Nordic Countries, offering both unlimited streaming and 48-hour rental of films online. Several Smart TVs have the Blockbuster app pre-installed out-of-the-box, and it is available on a variety of streaming devices such as Google's Chromecast.[186] The rights to the Blockbuster brand are now in hands of Nuuday.[187]
In March 2010, Blockbuster announced that it intended to sell all operations in Europe. The company once had an Irish subsidiary, Xtravision, which did not operate under the Blockbuster brand name. Blockbuster sold Xtravision at a loss in August 2009 to Birchhall Investments Limited. All remaining stores were closed in 2016, leaving only its online business and vending machines. In June 2021, Xtravision Xpress was placed into voluntary receivership.[192][193]
In January 2006, Blockbuster Brazil also introduced an online rental service now featuring both DVD and Blu-ray plans. There were four Block plans available with prices ranging from R$34.90 to R$79.90. The 3-disc plan with unlimited exchanges was R$49.90/month. Unlike the U.S. service, there was no in-store disk exchange.[215][failed verification][failed verification]
Blockbuster streaming service is still active in Nordic Countries, offering both unlimited streaming and 48-hour rental of films online. Several Smart TVs have the Blockbuster app pre-installed out-of-the-box, and it is available on a variety of streaming devices such as Google's Chromecast.[186] In 2020, the rights to the Blockbuster brand moved to Nuuday,[187] and to SF Anytime AB in 2023.[216]
In May 2004, Blockbuster also introduced an online subscription service. The unlimited three-disc plan cost 14.99/month but did not allow in-store exchange, contrary to the U.S. service. Partial support for in-store exchange was added in April 2005 with the launch of an "OnlineXtra" service. This service cost 2 per month, required an online subscription to a disc plan, and added two extra discs sent by mail. The OnlineXtra discs could be exchanged in store, but the non-OnlineXtra discs could not. The program was discontinued in 2006 with no grandfathering, but an in-store-only variant of it resurfaced in early 2008.[218] A "Click & Collect" service launched in September 2010 allowed the reservation of Blockbuster movies in store, but the store's regular rental fees applied until the company added in-store exchanges in May 2012.[219][220] Support for game reservations was added in November 2011.[221]
In 2008, Blockbuster UK's website underwent an overhaul, with an online store; a retail store stock checker; improved search functionality; and a critically acclaimed layout.[222] In-store pickup and exclusive titled were added in 2009. Some of the titles which had an exclusivity period at Blockbuster include Gran Torino, Changeling, Taken, and Knowing. Additionally, online rental downloads of Universal Pictures in the United Kingdom remains exclusive to Blockbuster. This provides an advantage to the rental company compared to its competitors HMV, Play, and LoveFilm.[222]
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