RIP: Redbox

[thewayne]

Redbox is going away.

Formerly unbeknownst to me, its owner is the corp Chicken Soup For The Soul Entertainment. This has been in the news recently, and I've been following it. They've fallen massively behind in royalty payments to people like NBC, etc. and finally they filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, i.e. reorganization.

It didn't go well.

The judge signed off on a petition by Chicken Soup's creditors to force them into Chapter 7 bankruptcy, liquidation.

So all of those kiosks at Walgreens and gas stations and etc. will be going away, not to mention a lot of jobs will be lost of those servicing those machines and stocking them.

While it's easy to say 'What's the market for DVD rental?', as a librarian I'll say that there's a very brisk trade in borrowing DVDs from libraries for free. LOTS of people don't have home internet connections for streaming, and rely on services like this for new content. It's kind of a shame to see it go away as it definitely fills a need in communities, but I guess they just couldn't keep it profitable.

The story is not obvious, though. Chicken Soup's CEO has been in the role for TWO WEEKS, and just resigned, 'for unrelated reasons'. Cue rats leaving sinking ship.

From the article: “There is no means to continue to pay employees, pay any bills, otherwise finance this case. It is hopelessly insolvent,” United States bankruptcy judge Thomas Horan determined during a hearing Wednesday, adding: “Given the fact that there may also be at least the possibility of misappropriation of funds that were held in trust for employees, there is more than ample reason why this case should be converted [from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7]. So I am going to grant the motion.” (edit mine)

The article goes on to describe them being unable to pay the fleet company they get their cars from, unable to pay the stores from whom they lease space for their kiosks, and the misappropriation bit about them continuing to withhold 401(k) and health insurance premiums from employee checks but not paying them to the appropriate funds.

So Redbox will be liquidated, and we'll see if some attorneys general start criminal investigations.

https://www.lowpass.cc/p/redbox-shutting-down

Comments

[bibliofile]

re: demand for non-streaming visual media

I know that some VHS tapes still saw a lot of lending action before the local library system finally decided to stick with only DVDs. Poor people like to watch movies, too.

Not that I had money for Redbox myself, but I saw the convenience.

[thewayne]

We recently retired all of the VHS from our library, moving the content that we created into our archive and I've started digitizing it.  Unfortunately a lot of new media is coming out Bluray-only, which limits our audience.  We try to buy DVD as much as we can, but that's getting hard.

[white_aster]

Sad! I was a real fan of Redbox. I figured that something was wrong when they culled back the boxes (including the convenient one that I always used) a year or so ago.

I'm a huge freaking fan of physical media because I don't pay for any streaming services (I don't watch that much TV, and when I do, it's something specific I want to watch, not just "I'll scroll through here until I find something to entertain me.", which seems to be how you're supposed to watch streaming services. If I want to scroll for random entertainment, I'll go to through my friendslist on DW or Pillowfort or Tumblr, all of those are free!) And for new movies, there was no more economical way to see them than to pick them up at Redbox for a night, usually when I went to pick up my groceries. :P

I could go on "old person rants at cloud" about how modern streaming's just recapitulated cable TV (which I'm ALSO shocked that people pay so much money for), but I'll stop there. ;P

[thewayne]

No, I agree (ranting at clouds!) that streaming is getting ridiculous.  I cancelled everything except Netflix and Prime because we weren't watching anything consistently.  We recently added back Disney/Hulu, which was planned as Dr. Who just completed its season and there were a couple of add'l things on Hulu that I wanted to watch (History of the World, Part 2 and Only Murders In This Building).  I don't buy as many DVDs/sets as I used to because about the only decent source that I can peruse them is Barnes & Noble, and their prices are awfully high as a rule.  So when there's something specific that I want, I can usually find a used copy online from sources other than Amazon.

[white_aster]

I feel like being cheap and not wanting to pay for cable for myself after I left college was one of the more money-back-in-my-pocket decisions I've made in my life. I just...never got used to hours spent in front of the television, and filled the time with cheaper things instead. I do every now and then sign up for a bit of streaming (I did it for Prime so I could watch the Fallout show), but I just can't depend on the backlog in streaming to entertain me. Once I watch the thing I wanted to watch, I'm done!

I don't remember if I've recced Thriftbooks.com to you before? They sell used DVDs as well as books, and have free shipping (though it is very slow, in that 'media mail' way.) I've been hitting them up for my physical media fix, lately.

[thewayne]

Half-priced books is a good source also.  They have lots of stores that are networked and can ship from anywhere.

[white_aster]

Yeah, I loved Half Price Books when I was in grad school. They don't have any stores around here, though, and the separate shipping charge for each item adds up fast. I don't know how Thriftbooks can offer free shipping, but that's often the deal maker for me.

[thewayne]

Also check out ziarecords.com, they're a big used music/video chain in Arizona and Las Vegas.  Excellent selection.  They are a must stop for me when I'm in Phoenix, and I buy a lot from them online.

[white_aster]

Oooh, I'll have to check them out!

[thewayne]

I hope you find them to your liking.  If you ever find yourself in Phoenix or Tucson, or Henderson, Nevada, they're worth spending some time browsing.

[disneydream06]

Is it Redbox that's in that much financial trouble or the Chicken Soup people?
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Redbox is definitely insolvent.  How much this will blowback to the Chicken Soup corp is unclear.  But the RB division is definitely going to go away, unless someone swoops in and buys it up whole, which I think is unlikely.  Must of the time divisions are set up like this so that if one goes bad, such as this case, it can be severed with minimal hurt to the parent corp.

[disneydream06]

I think it's awful that a company buys up something like that, and then obviously doesn't do anything to keep it going.
I assume it's a massive tax write off or something for them? :o

[thewayne]

Hard to say.  I don't know when Chicken Soup bought RB.  Since there's some hints that fraud and other irregularities may have been committed, it may take some time to untangle what actually happened.

[disneydream06]

Well, I have enough dvds to start my own RedBox.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thewayne]

I easily have over 600 DVDs and BRs.

[disneydream06]

WOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You might have me beat, unless I count all the separate dvds in the different tv seasons I have.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thewayne]

I'm not counting those, just individual titles.  So if a movie has three discs in it, that's a single count.

[disneydream06]

You probably have me beat then. LOL....

[silveradept]

There's still a very brisk trade in DVDs for us, because the Blu-Ray player has yet to actually become the $20 thing you can get at Wal-Mart, and the price of a Blu-Ray is not in the $3 bin of movies. It'll happen eventually, sure, but not for a very long time. And that assumes that everyone isn't trying to avoid physical media releases so they can engage in rent-seeking forever, and continue to refuse to let libraries access their catalogs. It very well may get to the point where the only way for libraries to offer video and audio media is to pirate it and offer it that way. Unfortunately, if the Internet Archive can't even lend things they own, in a controlled digital lending scheme, because of greed, then there's probably no way that we can set up our own distribution of material for all the people who can't afford the rents.

As for Redbox, this seems like sufficient gross mismanagement is alleged that the fortune of the person doing the mismanagement should be available to make reparations if the allegations are proven. But it will be bad to see the redboxes go.

[thewayne]

I did find BR players as low as $42 at our local(ish) Best Buy, they were open box.  Refurbs were going for $72.  Prices have certainly come down, but as you say, you don't see a lot of BR discs in the discount bins.

[silveradept]

Not really, and part of that, I suspect, is because Blu-Ray players need updates to their DRM systems to keep being able to play discs. Old players aren't functional when they stop being updated, and there's nobody out there with a generic firmware or system you cam install on a stand alone player to keep it going. DVDs always work. Blu-Ray needs updates. That's also not going to be a helpful thing for most people who don't have a lot of money to spend.

[halfshellvenus]

I was just lamenting the death of Netflix's DVD service, since someone mentioned S4 of "True Detective," and rental DVDs are exactly how we watched the other seasons. :(