Film & home video
Home video was a business of late fees and Friday nights for twenty-five years. Its biggest name is down to one store, and one of the best-funded attempts to replace it lasted six months.
Post-mortems in Film & home video
Blockbuster
1985 – 2010
Ghost
Technology shift
1 store left, of 9,094 at the 2004 peak
The biggest name in home video had 9,094 stores in 2004, a billion dollars of new debt and a rival it had declined to buy. One franchised store in Oregon still rents films under the sign.
Quibi
2018 – 2020
Dead
Strategy and management
198 days from launch to wind-down
Hollywood’s studios and Wall Street put $1.75 billion into ten-minute shows for phones. The service launched into a lockdown, charged for what rivals gave away, and was gone in eight months.