Blockbuster has recently drawn the ire of movie enthusiasts by inking “exclusive” rental deals with the likes of IFC. The upshot of this deal is that Blockbuster will retain the exclusive physical rental distribution rights for IFC titles for three years after each street date. Why is this important? Because Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes wants to buy Circuit City for the following reason:
“The combination of Blockbuster and Circuit City will result in an $18 billion retail enterprise uniquely positioned for the convergence of media content and electronic devices,” Keyes wrote. “We would seek to differentiate products in both Blockbuster and Circuit City stores by offering exclusive content and content-enabled devices.
Circuit City was initially unwilling to talk to Blockbuster, but today CNNMoney said that Circuit City has agreed to open its books:
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Circuit City to conduct due diligence and further explore a possible merger between our two companies,” said Blockbuster’s management in statement Friday. “We continue to believe this combination would create significant cost and operating synergies therefore unlocking substantial value for our shareholders.”
We have to ask you… are you interested in “exclusive content and content-enabled devices” from Circuit City?
Circuit City opens books to Blockbuster [CNNMoney]
(Photo: northernplateguy )
More From Consumerist
-
The Last Vestiges Of Circuit City To Disappear On Dec. 31
-
Massachusetts City Decides To Maintain Foreclosures
-
L.A. Blockbuster Wants Everyone To Know It Won’t Go Gentle Into That Good Night
-
Looks Like Blockbuster Won’t Get Its Bloody Revenge On Netflix After All
-
$500 Billion Isn’t A Reasonable Amount To Sue For When Your Car Gets Towed
“No,” I say as I lovingly pet my iPod.
No.
Now if it was Vivid and Circuit City…
Fuck yeah. Please buy CC, then I can watch you circle the drain *together*!
@karlrove: Exactly. There is one company and one company alone that can make us swallow the idea of “exclusive content,” and it’s not either of those.
Sounds like they’re in a big hurry to repeat the spectacular failure that was DIVX.
I am totally into closed systems. Especially from ailing retailers with questionable service.
I just can’t start my day off right without a big dose of DRM!
Two business that suck combined to make one business that sucks. Works for me.
@ShortBus:
If you mean the ingenious customer-empowering device which was 10 years ahead of its time, then yes!
I don’t shop at either place, so it doesn’t matter to me.
Hell to the no, I would like to actually be able to rent IFC movies from Netflix rather than wait for Blockbuster to play nice and release them for rental, which you know they won’t do unless they make Netflix pay out of the ass for them.
I disliked this the last time around, when it was called Divx.
[en.wikipedia.org]
Sounds like Circuit City didn’t learn its lesson.
No, not at all.
DIVX revisited?
It worked for cell phone carriers!
Wait.
circuit city? is that like amazon? but terrible?
I would forever stop shopping at CC if this happened due to my utter hatred for blockbuster.
suck + suck = more suck
The true sign of a clueless company. Just like Bill Gates thinks people will be willing to pay a monthly subscription to be able to use their OS on their computer. There really isn’t any content someone can hold hostage that will make me agree to nonsense like Blockbuster & CC. I like some of the IFC movies but not that much. There is enough other content in the world between cable & the internet. I will find something else to amuse me. Right now free Japanese TV shows from You Tube seem to be doing the trick.
Not content with having their own company go out of business, they are trying to get everybody else to go down with them.
This could actually make me get a second job as a Firedog “tech”. Then, CloneDVD + .torrent == exclusive to everyone.
Blockbuster, no.
Film Movement and Greencine, yes.
Content-enabled is a misnomer. It really means restricted-content.
It’ll be amusing if both go down the drain and wonder why it fails.
Funny how DIVX started out as this great idea, not unlike this one, and ended up as simply a codec to deliver pr0n.
I hope the same thing happens here.
@bohemian: One of the true gems with Software as a Service is that now that people are paying a monthly fee for service, you can start populating the service with advertisements, and tell the customers that it helps keep the cost of service down.
Ongoing subscription also opens the door to advertising.
I like content-enabled devices. However, both companies’ histories tend to suggest they’re more about device-disabled content.
@humphrmi: Different DIVX. The video codec DivX was ironically named after the lead balloon that was the DVD “rental” service.
if this goes at least the editors of Consumerist don’t have to worry about job security
Blockbuster + Circuit City: Two wrongs make do not make a right.
I couldn’t make my sentence right, either.
They’d have to call this bastard child “CircuitBuster”, wouldn’t they?
Please say yes!
Dude, I did some DRM last night.
I had an awful trip
I say that call themselves BlockCity and just sell LEGO!
Well if they combine their brick and mortar locations it will make it that much more convenient to not shop there.
@chrylis: I thought that they used the codec to deliver the (rental) content. But it was too long in the past for me to remember now.
I hate Circuit City…lukewarm on Blockbuster.
I care not for this “exclusive content.”
Two companies I cross the street to avoid, and I’m supposed to lust after their mutant offspring? Neeh!
Does anyone even shop at these places anymore, besides Grandpa and the assortment of local mouth breathers?
The Blockbuster/IFC thing strikes me as hilarious because among the movies that Blockbuster will not rent is IFC’s “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” which is a film entirely about the fact that NC-17 films are often not obtainable from most video stores.
Kirby Dick probably has a few choice words for IFC right about now.
If they start selling MTX Audio in Blockbuster I’d be all over it. I doubt that’ll happen though, so I wouldn’t really care for the merger. I still wonder if the newly designed Blockbuster stores are gonna fly.
I only ever go into the evil Blockbuster when I’ve been given a gift certificate there, and I NEVER go into Circuit City anymore.
If there was suddenly some kind of “content” I wanted but could only get at one of those two stores (or some conglomeration of the two), I would:
1) still not buy the movie, music or game that I wanted
2) begin to resent whichever content provider made the exclusive deal with the evil corproation in the first place
So really, this would be a lose-lose situtation for me and the content provider. (I don’t consider Blockbuster/Circuit City losing here, because they done have my business to lose anymore…)
@humphrmi: The original DIVX was essentially DVD with another layer of pointless DRM encryption. When the creators of the DivX codec first came out with it (before it got all commercial), they used the name precisely because it was expected to be used to distribute video such as that which DVD-CSS was supposed to “protect” in the first place.
Viacom slaves, ewww worst merger ever.
Once again: God only knows what kind of agreement Blockbuster thinks it has with IFC, but “exclusive physical rental distribution rights” don’t exist under US copyright law. If Netflix legally acquires a legally-produced copy of one of these DVDs, they have the legal right to rent it out. Period.
There are only two ways Blockbuster and/or IFC can prevent Netflix from renting out these DVDs:
1) Only sell them if the buyer contracts not to transfer ownership to anyone else…in which case BB/IFC could sue the buyer who transferred ownership of their copy to Netflix;
2) Don’t sell them at all, so there’s no way for Netflix to legally acquire one.
Circockbuster.
I’ll pass. The only thing that could make this unholy union more pathetic is if Sears wriggled into its cobweb covered strap-on and joined the party.
Maybe it will take them both down. One can only hope.
Yeah Divx is dead, long live Divx
I can see it now:
“Now at at Circuit City!* Rent an IFC** film and get special behind the scene footage and special content only available from Circuit City!***
*Exclusively available in Online Store only.
**IFC films only availiable at exclusive Blockbuster stores only
***Special footage is only available through exclusive Circuit City branded DVD players that are only purchasable through exclusive, local Circuit City stores only. Offer excluded to any store that is not locally exclusive to a 5 mile radius to your exclusively exclusive home address.”
Now that’s Exclusive Circuit City Exclusiveness!
@ratsgnawingatmyface: Mathematically I am curious about this. If two sucky companies combine are they twice as sucky, sucky squared (4x as sucky), sucky * 1.5? Can suckiness be quantified objectively?
Putting Circuit City and Blockbuster together is like putting chocolate and peanut butter together. Only if instead of chocolate you meant a big giant turd. And instead of peanut butter you meant a big giant turd.