Re: Blockbuster Spends Last Few Dollars on Weak Ad

Blockbuster didn’t do anything wrong or “slimy” (i guess that means dirty) in advertising that you don’t have to wait 28 days for movies. Its the truth! a lot of people don’t know about the 28 day rule. My father in law asked me once how come you have Terminator Salvation and i tried looking for it in Netflix to rent it and i couldn’t find it. I bought from Best Buy when it came out and he had to wait 28days. He was shocked when i told him about the Red Box and Netflix limitations.

Blockbuster didn’t enact or had any major say in this 28day rule. Yes, they did lobby for it like any normal company would when there is an opportunity to gain an edge. but its not called being slimy its being competitive. The big studios all decided that Redbox and Netflix was diluting the value of their films, since many people were opting to not go to the movie theater or buying the film but just renting for a 1 or 12.99 a month for unlimited movies. So the studios actually decided to stop selling to these discounters, they still sold to Blockbuster since they charge a reasonable fee for renting a movie. The discounters began buying the movies at retail prices which obviously hurt their bottom lines. After much discussion the studios decided that after 28days anyone that wanted to watch the movie would have watched it already and the 28day rule was born. I’m sure in the midst of this Blockbuster was saying no make it 40 days or don’t sell to them or whatever but like I said its just competition.