2008 Woodie Awards
Net killed video store
William Goss
Issue date: 6/26/08 Section: Variety
Crosby Stapleton has been an employee at College Park Video for about a year and a half, although he insists that he's been a frequenter of its aisles since his mother pushed him around them in a stroller. But with the store scheduled to close its doors by July 1, the 27-year-old finds himself all grown up and with no place to go, as the store finds its lease ended after 23 years.
"It's been on the slide since Netflix came around and Blockbuster began to offer whatever it was, whatever incentive program they had," said Stapleton, wearing a newly fashioned nametag that quite plainly states, in big black lettering, "I NEED A JOB."
With an estimated 8.2 million subscribers, Netflix recently sold out of its first set-top devices, which can stream movies from the company's Web site directly to a customer's TV set, a move that serves as yet another nail in the coffin of smaller rental businesses like College Park Video and Stardust. Meanwhile, iTunes sells and rents over 50,000 feature films a day, according to trade publication Variety, which estimates that Apple will sell and rent over 18 million films by year's end - an amount three times more than last year.
"Everybody comments about it, but maybe 2 percent say, 'what are you guys going to do about it?' while 98 percent of them say, 'where are we going to rent our movies?'" Stapleton said. "Everybody asks why, and the answers now are so succinct and truncated that anyone who works here can tell you, 'they're tearing the building down; we tried moving, but that's not going to work out."
The neighboring Rosa's Designs and Alterations and Brother's Keeper Thrift Store have already vacated the building, currently owned by Demetree Properties, which reportedly plans to tear it down and rebuild it, with Planet Smoothie being the only business that can afford to return to the location.
"At this point," Stapleton said, "I'm thinking of just making a big poster with all the questions and answers on it, because they always seem to be in the same order every time we get asked them."
"It's been on the slide since Netflix came around and Blockbuster began to offer whatever it was, whatever incentive program they had," said Stapleton, wearing a newly fashioned nametag that quite plainly states, in big black lettering, "I NEED A JOB."
With an estimated 8.2 million subscribers, Netflix recently sold out of its first set-top devices, which can stream movies from the company's Web site directly to a customer's TV set, a move that serves as yet another nail in the coffin of smaller rental businesses like College Park Video and Stardust. Meanwhile, iTunes sells and rents over 50,000 feature films a day, according to trade publication Variety, which estimates that Apple will sell and rent over 18 million films by year's end - an amount three times more than last year.
"Everybody comments about it, but maybe 2 percent say, 'what are you guys going to do about it?' while 98 percent of them say, 'where are we going to rent our movies?'" Stapleton said. "Everybody asks why, and the answers now are so succinct and truncated that anyone who works here can tell you, 'they're tearing the building down; we tried moving, but that's not going to work out."
The neighboring Rosa's Designs and Alterations and Brother's Keeper Thrift Store have already vacated the building, currently owned by Demetree Properties, which reportedly plans to tear it down and rebuild it, with Planet Smoothie being the only business that can afford to return to the location.
"At this point," Stapleton said, "I'm thinking of just making a big poster with all the questions and answers on it, because they always seem to be in the same order every time we get asked them."