blockbuster: a series of rheotorical questions

[modage]

okay, new question.  why, if blockbuster has always ONLY allowed movies R rated or lower into their stores, which has affected movies having to get an R to get financed so they can be carried there, or a seperate cut being made just for them, do they now have GIANT posters in their window advertising the ANCHORMAN: UNRATED UNCUT & UNCALLED FOR edition?!?!?!  those fucking pricks

[Weird. Oh]

okay, new question.  why, if blockbuster has always ONLY allowed movies R rated or lower into their stores, which has affected movies having to get an R to get financed so they can be carried there, or a seperate cut being made just for them, do they now have GIANT posters in their window advertising the ANCHORMAN: UNRATED UNCUT & UNCALLED FOR edition?!?!?!  those fucking pricks

Because Blockbuster has allowed unrated version of films for who knows how long. I worked there starting in march 03 and they had them, so it has been quite sometime. I dont' work there anymore, but I still am quite certain they carry unrated films. I don't know where this myth started.

[Weak2ndAct]

It used to be the opposite, Blockbuster would never carry anything racy, unrated, nc-17, etc., whereas Hollywood had no problem doing so.  Then one day they decided to flip their stances, who knows why.  Hollywood has at least gotten their act together as of late, the stores are now offering both versions of rated/unrated flicks (which has now become officially the most annoying trend ever, but that's a rant for another day).

[Gold Trumpet]

okay, new question.  why, if blockbuster has always ONLY allowed movies R rated or lower into their stores, which has affected movies having to get an R to get financed so they can be carried there, or a seperate cut being made just for them, do they now have GIANT posters in their window advertising the ANCHORMAN: UNRATED UNCUT & UNCALLED FOR edition?!?!?!  those fucking pricks

understandable, but when I did have Blockbuster long long ago, they had the unrated edition of Sex and Lucia and I bought my unrated edition of Y Tu Mama Tambien there as well. But, of course its hypritical and dumb.

[MacGuffin]

Hollywood Entertainment OKs $850M Buyout

Video rental giant Hollywood Entertainment Corp. has agreed to a buyout offer of nearly $850 million from smaller rival Movie Gallery Inc. in a deal that would create a stronger challenger to the industry leader, Blockbuster Inc.

But in a sign that Wall Street is betting the fight for Hollywood Entertainment may not be over, investors pushed its shares well above the offered price.

The planned combination announced Monday of the No. 2 and No. 3 video rental chains would create a company with annual revenue of approximately $2.5 billion and approximately 4,500 stores.

That would still be a distant second to No. 1 Blockbuster which has 9,000 outlets worldwide.

The agreement comes as traditional video rental companies are locked in a price war with online pioneer Netflix Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for rentals ordered on the Internet and delivered through the mail.

Hollywood Entertainment, based in Wilsonville, Ore., near Portland, has been looking for a buyer for several months and had attracted bids from both Movie Gallery and Blockbuster as well as from a management group.

Late last month, Blockbuster said it would launch a hostile bid for Hollywood Entertainment in January if the rival's directors failed to negotiate a deal. Blockbuster had offered $11.50 a share for Hollywood.

On Monday, Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove declined to comment on the announced deal.

Under the deal announced Monday, Movie Gallery would offer $13.25 a share, or about $850 million, in cash for Hollywood Entertainment's shares. It would also assume about $350 million in Hollywood's debt in the deal.

Joe Malugen, Movie Gallery's chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement the deal would create a stronger competitor with "a broader geographic presence and greatly improved distribution capabilities and scale."

The offer represents a slim 1.5 percent premium over Hollywood Entertainment's closing price of $13.05 on Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

In a sign that some investors expect a higher bid, Hollywood Entertainment shares climbed 69 cents, or 5.3 percent, to $13.74 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq market while Movie Gallery shares were up $1.23, or 6.5 percent, at $20.30. Blockbuster shares were down 21 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $9.08 on the New York Stock Exchange.

"This is not the last we'll be hearing from Blockbuster," said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Southwest Securities in Dallas.

Hollywood officials said the merger with Movie Gallery offered shareholders a better deal not only because of the higher price per share, but also because the union of the two smaller companies would face less of a challenge from regulators.

In 1999, a plan to rename Hollywood Video stores under the Blockbuster banner was stopped by the Federal Trade Commission.

"The Movie Gallery offer is a very attractive offer because it has significantly less regulatory risk than a deal with Blockbuster," said Daniel Burch, a Hollywood spokesman. A deal with Blockbuster, he said, would likely be stopped.

But analysts said that in a Republican administration, even a merger with the nation's top video rental chain would likely sail through.

"AT&T and Cingular just merged and the combined entity has over 25 percent of the wireless market," said Michael Pachter, research analyst with Los Angeles-based Wedbush Morgan Securities. "A combined Blockbuster and Hollywood would be under 20 percent of the home entertainment market," he said.

Marla Backer, an analyst with New York-based Research Associates-Soleil, agrees. "I think there is regulatory risk, but I don't think it's insurmountable," she said, adding: "It could get done, but clearly not as easily as a merger with Movie Gallery."

Backer said Blockbuster will now have to significantly improve its latest $11.50 per share offer in order to remain competitive.

"You have to think that Blockbuster will have to really be sweeter to compensate the shareholders for the increased regulatory risk they would assume," she said.

In August, Hollywood Entertainment had agreed to let its chairman and chief executive and Los Angeles buyout firm Leonard Green & Partners to take the company private for $10.25 a share. The deal, however, allowed Hollywood to solicit other bids, and the CEO said he welcomed Blockbuster's offer.

In November, Dallas-based Blockbuster offered $11.50 a share for Hollywood and said early in December that it may sweeten its offer for its rival.

On Nov. 19, Movie Gallery of Dothan, Ala., said it had offered an undisclosed amount for Hollywood.

Blockbuster already has 9,000 outlets worldwide. Hollywood Video has 2,000 Hollywood Video superstore stores and more than 700 Game Crazy specialty departments. Movie Gallery has more than 2,475 outlets.

Analysts said that another advantage to the Movie Gallery merger is that fewer stores would be closed than if Hollywood was to combined with Blockbuster. Movie Gallery maintains stores predominantly in rural areas, while Hollywood's market, like Blockbuster's, is largely in urban centers.

"Hollywood and Movie Gallery have only 10 percent overlap," said Pachter.

Hollywood spokesman Larry Dennedy said that the merger would not lead to closures. Also, under the agreement with Movie Gallery, the company will remain headquartered in Oregon.

[MacGuffin]

Blockbuster Still Eyeing Hollywood

Blockbuster Inc., the nation's largest movie-rental chain, said Tuesday it is still interested in buying Hollywood Entertainment Corp., despite its smaller rival's agreement last week to be purchased by another competitor, Movie Gallery Inc., for about $850 million.

John Antioco, Blockbuster chairman and chief executive, said his Dallas-based company was evaluating making a new offer, a signal the bidding could still go higher.

Blockbuster also said that antitrust regulators had asked for more information about its offer to buy Hollywood Entertainment, which the company expected to provide by the first week of February.

Antioco said he was disappointed that a special committee of Hollywood Entertainment's board accepted an offer from Movie Gallery "without giving Blockbuster a fair opportunity to participate in the auction process."

Hollywood Entertainment has refused to open its books to Blockbuster unless it agreed not to launch a hostile takeover for three years. Blockbuster, which said it needed to see the information to determine a fair price for its smaller rival, rejected the condition.

Movie Gallery, based in Dothan, Ala., the nation's third-largest movie-rental chain, agreed last week to pay $13.25 per share in cash for No. 2 Hollywood Entertainment and assume about $350 million in debt. That trumped Blockbuster's previous bid of $11.50 per share.

Antioco said it no longer made sense for Blockbuster to begin a previously threatened hostile takeover of Hollywood Entertainment at the $11.50 per share price, but he said Blockbuster was considering the price it would be willing to offer taking other factors into account, including a termination fee to Movie Gallery that is included in the deal with Hollywood Entertainment.

Shares of Hollywood Entertainment, based in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Wilsonville, have moved above Movie Gallery's offered price, indicating investors expect a bidding war.

Hollywood shares rose 7 cents to $14.29 in morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Blockbuster's shares were up 1 cent at $9.49 on the New York Stock Exchange, and Movie Gallery shares fell 20 cents to $20.45 on Nasdaq.

A combination of Hollywood Entertainment and Movie Gallery would create a chain with about 4,500 stores and annual revenue of about $2.5 billion, still far behind Blockbuster, which has about 9,000 stores worldwide.

[MacGuffin]

Blockbuster Makes Hostile Hollywood Bid

Blockbuster Inc. has raised its bid for rival movie-rental chain Hollywood Entertainment Corp., launching a hostile cash and stock offer valued at $1.3 billion that it hopes will derail Hollywood's pending sale to Movie Gallery Inc.

Blockbuster, the nation's largest movie-rental chain, said Wednesday it would offer $14.50 per share for No. 2 Hollywood beginning Friday more than the $13.25 per share that Movie Gallery offered.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dallas-based Blockbuster offered to pay $11.50 in cash and $3 in its own stock for each Hollywood share adding the stock component to the $11.50 per share offer it made last month.

Blockbuster said buying Hollywood would immediately improve its earnings per share and cash flow.

Wilsonville, Ore.-based Hollywood announced last month that it had agreed to be bought by Movie Gallery, the nation's No. 3 rental firm, based in Dothan, Ala.

A combination of Hollywood Entertainment and Movie Gallery would create a chain with about 4,500 stores and annual revenue of about $2.5 billion, still far behind Blockbuster, which has about 9,000 stores worldwide.

All three chains face growing competition from online movie-order services, including Netflix Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

[MacGuffin]

Blockbuster Late-Fee Policy Raises Questions

Blockbuster's new "no late fees" policy is billed as a way to satisfy those customers who rent movies or games but forget to return them on time.

But the policy's fine print is raising some potential customer-relations questions, industry executives say.

Though consumers now have an extended grace period to return films and games without extra fees at Blockbuster stores, they ultimately are charged the full retail price of the title (minus the initial rental fee) if they keep it for more than a month. The program, which launched Jan. 1, is now in effect at Blockbuster's more than 4,500 stores in the United States.

According to the Los Angeles Times, several state attorneys general are investigating the company's ad campaign.

Blockbuster corporate spokesman Randy Hargrove says the Dallas-based chain has "received inquiries" but would not disclose from whom. "Once we explain the policy, they seem to understand the details," he says.

Tom Kelley, spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, says that no consumers have made any complaints to Abbott's office, but that "other attorneys general may be looking at this. I did see some e-mails from the national attorney general in Washington."

Calls to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer were not returned by press time.

The video rental and retail trade group Video Software Dealers Assn. believes the policy is beingunfairly targeted.

'NO FREE LUNCH'

"I don't think that any reasonable customer thinks that there ought to be a system whereby they walk into a video store, rent a new release for two days, walk off into the wild blue yonder, never return it, keep it in their library and never have to reimburse a video store for its intrinsic value," VSDA president Bo Andersen says. "Reasonable consumers know that there is no free lunch."

Blockbuster head of U.S. store operations Nick Shepherd says the policy was implemented because the No. 1 dissatisfaction for most renters is late fees.

The chain actually wants customers to return discs as early as possible, he says.

"I need them to bring it back so I can rent it to other people," he notes. "We still have due dates. One of the things we learned is that if you try to explain (the whole program) to the customer at the point of sale ... they aren't interested."

New releases can be rented for two days, catalog titles for seven. Games can be rented for seven days. If a customer keeps a title seven days beyond those deadlines, Shepherd says, they get reminder calls from the store. A card is then sent in the mail notifying them that the title is due back and that the customer will be charged the full price if they do not return it within 30 days.

For instance, if a customer checked out a seven-day rental Feb. 1 and kept it past the Feb. 8 due date, the store would call, then send a card saying that the customer has until Feb. 15 to return the movie or be charged for it. The customer then has another 30 days to return it and get most of their money back.

JUST A LITTLE MORE TIME

Shepherd says the store will charge "the lowest retail price when you rented it and refund the rental fee ... Because there are still some people who don't want to own it, you get 30 days to bring it back and we will charge a $1.25 restocking fee (above the rental fee). We don't want people to keep it if they don't want to. We just want to give them the convenience and flexibility of a bit more time."

Shepherd says that the chain has advertised the details of the policy extensively and that Blockbuster's "heaviest" training program was implemented to fill in store staff. Stores also have brochures for customers explaining the policy.

Understandably, rival rental operations are poking at Blockbuster's campaign. Online rental company Netflix, which pioneered a no-late fees policy, says that Blockbuster is reacting to consumers' high interest in alternative rental options without extra fees.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings calls Blockbuster's policy "a sign that we are really setting the agenda in the video rental business and they are reacting. It's not really 'no late fees.' It's the 'Blockbuster automatic purchase program."'

Independent brick-and-mortar stores are worried that their businesses could be affected.

"I'm not happy about it at all," says Patty Polinger, owner of Santa Monica, Calif., rental store Vidiots. "It's not good for the whole industry. I don't think customers will be happy when they find out the details about how it works. It could create bad will."

[Jeremy Blackman]

you get 30 days to bring it back and we will charge a $1.25 restocking fee

I knew there would be something like that.

[modage]

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings calls Blockbuster's policy "a sign that we are really setting the agenda in the video rental business and they are reacting. It's not really 'no late fees.' It's the 'Blockbuster automatic purchase program."

way to call it like it is netflix guy.  

[peaceisourprofession]

haha, i worked at blockbuster for seven months. trust me, you don't want to work there. it seems perfect, it seems like a lot of things, but my friends: I have been to the dark side and am forever living my life in fear, because I escaped.
where do i start? not only does this place rip off customers, frequently without warrant, they also don't give a shit, they are horrible employers. I worked there seven months, became as a full time manager, and I was only making $6.50 an hour. Not to mention I worked as a manager for them for 3 months before they gave me the raise they promised me.
They have a horribly faulty and ridiculous membership system, along with a billion other things I can't get into because I am still scared.

[MacGuffin]

Blockbuster Accused of Violating N.J. Law

The state of New Jersey claims Blockbuster Inc., the nation's largest movie-rental chain, has violated the state's consumer protection laws with its new policy on late fees.

In a lawsuit filed Friday, the state charged that Blockbuster failed to disclose key terms in the policy, including that overdue rentals are automatically converted to a sale on the eighth day after the due date.

The state is seeking restitution for customers whose overdue rentals were converted to a sale. It also wants compensation for people who were charged late fees by stores that were not participating in the new policy, but that failed to make that obvious.

State Attorney General Peter C. Harvey on Friday called the company's advertising and marketing "deceptive." He said state investigators began visiting dozens of the 170 Blockbuster stores in New Jersey even before receiving a complaint, and found that employees gave misleading or erroneous information on the policy.

To date, one aggrieved consumer has contacted the state, Harvey said, adding, "We will be flooded with complaints from people who will tell us this is their experience, too."

The lawsuit was filed in state Superior Court in Trenton.

In a statement, the Dallas-based chain said it has "taken a number of very thorough steps to let customers know how our new program works. Blockbuster has trained store employees on how to effectively communicate the program to customers, both on the sales floor and at checkout."

The stores also have free brochures explaining the program, the company said.

Blockbuster eliminated late fees on games and movies starting Jan. 1, although customers who miss a one-week grace period will be billed for buying the item or charged a $1.25 restocking fee. The company said due dates at its 4,600 U.S. stores would remain one week for games and two days or one week for movies.

Additionally, about half of 1,100 Blockbuster stores that are operated by franchisees are participating in the program, company spokesman Randy Hargrove said.

Harvey, however, said some stores displayed signs touting "The end of late fees" but were not participating.

Hargrove said that only franchise stores have the option not to participate. "I'd love to be able to know which stores he was talking about to see if he was accurate," he said.

Renters who keep the movies or games beyond the grace period will be charged for purchasing the DVD or tape at Blockbuster's full retail price, minus the rental fee, the company said. If they return the movie or game in the next 30 days, they will get a refund for the purchase but will be charged a restocking fee of $1.25, the company said.

Blockbuster shares rose 5 cents to $9.13 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares are up from a 52-week low of $6.50 last fall.

[Pwaybloe]

Consumers are absolute morons.  

Blockbuster never said they were getting rid of due dates, they were getting rid of late fees.  

Please don't tell me that this is news to the rest of you.

[peaceisourprofession]

Yeah, no more late fees, still due dates
but you have to admit it is at least a little deceiving.
I quit just as they started to promote No More Late Fees, and not just a few, but every customer came in and asked me about the policy. When I told them there were still late fees, just not as much etc. they were confused/pissed. Every one of them. People are idiots, but even my good customers were pretty annoyed.

[MacGuffin]

Blockbuster Admits Some Stores Have Ended No-Late-Fee Policy

On the heels of reports that attorneys general in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee are looking to allegations that some Blockbuster franchise stores have begun charging late fees again without notifying customers, Blockbuster issued a statement on Thursday acknowledging that about 160 of its 515 franchisees have dropped the "no late fees" policy. The company said that the independent stores had done so because they could not afford to buy the inventory needed to allow customers to keep the rented movies for lengthy periods of time.