Is Blockbusters video having financial difficulties?

Question

The only one in Bellevue, NE city population of around 55,000 closed recently. I liked Blockbusters and wonder why they closed.

Answer 1

Blockbuster as a company is at its highest stock prices in a year (see source below). Blockbuster is much like a Burger Kind or Pizza Hut... the stores you see are franchises that are opened (usually) by independent businessmen and pay Blockbuster to use their business plan and name. If stores are closing around your town, it may just be because they were ran badly by their owners.

Answer 2

Their new Total Access service is doing well, but the numbers won't be in until Tuesday...look below.

Sorry to hear you lost the store. I use Blockbuster Online and we have a store in our city of 20,000.


The Fool's Look Ahead
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz
February 24, 2007

Monday
The new trading week kicks off with a "pow" and a "ka-blam" now that Marvel Entertainment (NYSE: MVL) is reporting. This should be a lull for the superhero powerhouse. Analysts expect Marvel to earn $0.10 a share for the December quarter, a third of what it earned a year earlier. We're still months away from when the Spider-Man gold mine hits the local multiplex, and things will get even more interesting now that the Stock Advisor recommendation is bankrolling some of its future releases.

Tuesday
Let's make Tuesday a Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) blockbuster. The video rental giant clearly has a popular hit on its hands with its Total Access program. We know that much. What we don't know is if the company can turn a profit on the service. Blockbuster has always posted a profit in the seasonally spiked fourth quarter, though (as with Marvel) analysts expect the company to earn less than a third of what it did a year earlier.

Answer 3

Yes in the same way AOL is, they are outdated. When It's cheaper to buy a movie than rent it the decision is much to easy to make. These movie clubs also took a tear into them. They really should close all sites and put their effort into send-in rentals only they may just survive the change. Or they can do like AOL and hold on the the dial-up until the bitter end. Their name is popular and name recognition is a main key for internet sales.