ust days after Outerwall, the parent company of Redbox, announced a new beta streaming service the company has been acquired by a private-equity firm called Apollo Global Management according to repoting by Bloomberg. The move brings into question whether the red kiosks that dot the sidewalks of many a pharmacy, gas station and grocery store across the nation will disappear.
What Happened To Redbox?
Redbox has seen a decline in DVD rentals this year but the service has still proven quite popular because of its low prices and a strong selection of new and current titles.
What will happen?
If Redbox feels that the rental of physical DVDs is a loss leader going forward, maybe the company will be able to find a way to sell off the physical media assets as a way to finance a robust digital library and get the kinds of deals that stick out for consumers. That would have to be the best case scenario since frankly, the current streaming space seems to be quite well established. At best the Redbox streaming offering as it stands sounds like a poor mans Amazon Video. Being a poor man’s Blockbuster Video worked out well for the company as it helped usher in the end of the long-standing behemoth in the home video industry. But the march towards streaming and ability to get HD content on-demand is apparently worth the extra change to a number of consumers who don’t want the responsibility of returning disks at all, even with half a dozen places to do so within 2 miles of almost anything.
