Dish Founder Gives Up on Making Blockbuster a "Netflix Killer"

Bloomberg reports that Dish CEO Charlie Ergen is giving up on making Blockbuster a "Netflix Killer."

“You make a lot of mistakes in business,” Ergen, Dish’s founder and chairman, said in an Oct. 3 interview. “I don’t think Blockbuster is going to be a mistake, but it’s unclear if that’s going to be a transformative decision.”

Dish has begun the process of closing stores that no longer make strategic sense, a plan that will allow Dish to turn a profit on the $320 million acquisition, Ergen said. Some Blockbuster DVD-rental stores can still make money in rural regions, he said. About 900 U.S. stores remained as of August, a fraction of the thousands Blockbuster once operated.

This really seems like the end of an era.

via Consumerist.

Comments

[Armin Tamzarian]

Wonder how old Bobby feels now? (see bottom comments @ link)

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2011/09/blockbuster-launching-netflix-competitor-this-friday.html

[glebe]

The DVD site is still running. Is that now owned by a different entity?

There are more and more streaming options out there but it would be awful to lose the one DVD competitor

[alex]

Ergen is scum .
i had dish for years and got rid of it 5 years ago just because of him

[Stuie299]

Come on, we all know how to make Blockbuster profitable. Blockbuster should focus all and I mean all of their efforts onto content acquisition. As long as their website has a queue and similar basic features it can easily compete with Netflix. Who knows it might actually beat out Netflix if it can amass more content.

[Rocketboy_X]

Why do you think that Bobby cares? He was nothing but one of the scumbags trying to manipulate the stock prices.

[EZ]

So is BB going to give-up DVD by mail too?

[Edward R Murrow]

Netflix is the Netflix killer. They tripped the NASDAQ circuit breaker all on their own today. Netflix falls 100%

[Edward R Murrow]

Oops, that URL should read 10%, darn sticky '0' key!

[BoB]

Amazon is the NF killer.

[Galagatron]

About a year ago, I tried Blockbuster Online a second time and it was still bad compared to Netflix.
Somewhat related...am I the only person not nostalgic for Blockbuster Video's reign as the dominant video store? I much preferred the smaller stores, when they existed.

[Perkins Cobb]

Good question about the Blockbuster rent-by-mail service. Will it just vanish any day now? It sucks on a number of levels, but I still have a Blockbuster queue full of discs that Netflix no longer carries, or never carried. Guess I need to hurry up on those.

[yobagoya]

Can't wait for BB to stop mail order but to keep billing for it. Ya know its going to happen.

[Perkins Cobb]

Yobagoya: Well, I can barely prod loose any discs from them now, so it's sort of a phased transition....

[dAVe]

Here's what I read about the discs from the Chicago Tribune 10/5/12 article:

"Dish no longer has plans to use Blockbuster as a nationwide video streaming or DVD-by-mail service, Ergen said."

Here's the URL link:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-dish-drops-plans-to-make-blockbuster-a-netflix-rival-20121005,0,2275554.story

Alternatively, go to Google.com and search for "DISH blockbuster chicago tribune" (no quotes) and it should be the first link.

[armani watches uk]

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[Bob]

Wow this sucks big time.

[Donald]

I seriously don't understand why they're getting rid of the disc by mail service, I thought it was still profitable for them. Perhaps they're going to extend their streaming purchase and rental side to compete with Amazon, Vudu, etc.