The wave of video store closures sweeping up mega rental chains across Canada and the United States is taking some independent stores out with it, leaving a gap in the entertainment industry that some worry will be filled with Hollywood monoculture.
Online streaming, Netflix, and Redbox kiosks are largely to blame for the decrease in big video rental stores, although one owner of an independent video rental store in Vancouver that is about to shut down says there are also cultural factors at work.
Brian Bosworth, co-owner of Vancouver’s iconic Videomatica, which is closing its doors after three decades, said he has seen a decrease in video rentals since 2008.
He says the factors responsible for the drop are larger cultural, political, social, and economic issues.
“People think it’s Netflix that did us in and did in video stores, but there was a decline in the video rental business in Canada way before that, and a steeper decline in the U.S.,” he said.
A combination of online streaming, video-on-demand, satellite delivery, and even regular television were all “straws on the camel’s back” that eroded video rental profits irreversibly, according to Bosworth.
Bosworth believes that Internet culture is also to blame for the way society views renting movies. He says people now expect everything to be free or very cheap and instantaneous. And the accessibility of Internet entertainment is taking up the time people used to spend watching movies.
Online streaming, Netflix, and Redbox kiosks are largely to blame for the decrease in big video rental stores, although one owner of an independent video rental store in Vancouver that is about to shut down says there are also cultural factors at work.
Brian Bosworth, co-owner of Vancouver’s iconic Videomatica, which is closing its doors after three decades, said he has seen a decrease in video rentals since 2008.
He says the factors responsible for the drop are larger cultural, political, social, and economic issues.
“People think it’s Netflix that did us in and did in video stores, but there was a decline in the video rental business in Canada way before that, and a steeper decline in the U.S.,” he said.
A combination of online streaming, video-on-demand, satellite delivery, and even regular television were all “straws on the camel’s back” that eroded video rental profits irreversibly, according to Bosworth.
Bosworth believes that Internet culture is also to blame for the way society views renting movies. He says people now expect everything to be free or very cheap and instantaneous. And the accessibility of Internet entertainment is taking up the time people used to spend watching movies.
Narrowing Entertainment
A new danger coming with the close-out of independent film stores is that consumers will have less access to smaller, independent films and documentaries, and less knowledge that films other than Hollywood blockbusters even exist.
“Every time there’s a shift in the technology, there’s less actual product, and it becomes more new-release mainstream oriented,” he said. “So there’s a ton of stuff out on DVD that I don’t think people will ever be able to get online, but the fact is they won’t know that they’re not getting it.”
