Quietly, over the past two decades, as Blockbuster rental stores closed by the thousands, DVD replaced VHS, streaming replaced DVD and digital began to dominate analog media in the war for consumer attention, a few resisters clung tight to their tapes. Now this growing group of enthusiasts — who sometimes self-identify as “tapeheads” — are rewinding time to an age before on-demand, and they are bringing the VHS and the video store back to life. (Russell Falcon/Nexstar)
If you want to buy a DVD or Blu-ray at Best Buy, you’ll soon be out of luck. The box store chain has reportedly begun to remove physical media and displays from its store shelves, according to reports on X, formerly Twitter. The social media posts come after Best Buy’s October confirmation that it would stop selling physical media in the first quarter of 2024. The decision was made in response to the mass audience migration to streaming services and digital downloads.
Netflix and Best Buy said adieu to discs — but with streamers deleting titles to cut costs, could DVDs and Blu-rays mimic the revival of vinyl and CDs?
Exclusives
The eventual demise of its DVD-by-mail service has been inevitable since co-CEO Reed Hastings decided to spin it off from a then-nascent video streaming service in 2011. Back then, Hastings floated the idea of renaming the service as Qwikster — a bungled idea that was so widely ridiculed that it was satirized on Saturday Night Live. It finally settled on its current, more prosaic handle, DVD.com. The operation is now based in non-descript office in Fremont, Calif., located about 20 miles from Netflix’s sleek campus in Los Gatos, Calif.
The market for physical discs has evaporated. So Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. are looking for a way to save the format.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — No surprise: Adam West has an excellent sense of humor. The actor, after all, was immersed in a madcap brew of scenery-chewing villains and pun-filled dialogue […]
Alternative devices for viewing TV/entertainment content have been growing — but nowhere has this gain been more evident than with video-game devices. Knowledge Networks says that in 2011, playback/recorded content via video-game devices amounts to 12% of all 13- to-54-year-olds who watch streamed or downloaded TV programs or movies through a video-game system at least once a month.
