Posted Wed Sep 19, 2012 at 09:00 AM PDT by Dick Ward
The NPD also says that disc renting is down overall, in correlation with the closure of rental locations.
A year ago, Netflix decided to try something new. Instead of a single service that offered both discs and streaming content, they would break off the disc-based rentals into a separate service called Qwikster. It should be obvious, but the idea didn't work.
The result of the Qwikster announcement, coupled with price increases across the board, was instant dissatisfaction from disc renters. Now, a year later, the popularity of Netflix disc rentals has decreased. A year ago, 35 percent of Netflix customers rented discs, while now they're down to 27 percent.
This seems to be part of a general trend away from disc rentals in general, which are down 40 percent from last year. It doesn't help that there's also been a large decline in the amount of renters on the market. The biggest, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future, is Redbox.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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