The Dish Network Corp. (Meridian, Colo.) will close the roughly 300 remaining Blockbuster stores that it owns, effectively ending the retail ride of the once-dominant big box video rental company.
About 50 U.S. Blockbuster locations are owned by third-party franchisees and might remain open. In addition, Dish will continue to operate “Blockbuster @Home,” a streaming film service for its satellite television subscribers, and “Blockbuster On Demand,” a competitor to the iTunes Store. Dish said it would hold onto the rights it owns for streaming content.
At its zenith, as recently as 2004, Blockbuster operated more than 9000 stores across the U.S. When Dish took over the operation in 2011, following a bankruptcy auction, there were less than 2000, and many of them were closed shortly thereafter.
Dish will also close all the distribution centers that support Blockbuster’s DVD-by-mail service, which is being dismantled.
“This is not an easy decision,” said Dish ceo Joseph Clayton, according to Bloomberg News, “yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment.”