It took Movie Gallery
Movie Gallery already has roughly 75 kiosks under its Hollywood Video brand, located in unconventional locations like Cub Foods grocery stores. The Hollywood Video Express kiosks accept credit cards and dispense movies and games. The credit cards are then charged for the amount of time the rental is out (or up to a limit of $19.99 for movies or $49.99 for games). Renters don't have to be card-carrying members of Movie Gallery or Hollywood Video to use the kiosks. Movie Gallery plans to deploy 200 more units between now and the end of the year.
On the Web-based front, the company plans to roll out an online video store to its existing customers later this year. Limiting its initial offering to existing chain-store users seems to follow in the Total Access footsteps of Blockbuster
Total Access has been good to Blockbuster, with 2.2 million subscribers at the end of last year, heading toward 4 million users by the end of 2007. Is Total Access profitable? It probably won't be for awhile, but at least Blockbuster is finally drawing a crowd again.
Movie Gallery's move comes after a lackluster quarterly report, but it's not necessarily a surprise. It announced that it would be acquiring set-top celluloid distributor MovieBeam earlier this month.
Move over, Netflix
The competitive landscape is getting crowded in a hurry. Apple
Wonder what direction the movie distribution business is headed? Check out:
- Movie Gallery Fades to Red
- It's in the Box, Movie Gallery
- Date Netflix, Marry Amazon, Kill Blockbuster
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