• Los Angeles Times, Thursday, April 2, 2009 11 AM

Meanwhile, Dawn C. Chmielewski reports that "the hottest thing in movie rentals is as old as the Coke machine -- and just as red." The Redbox movie kiosks that are popping up by the thousands in supermarkets, drugstores, restaurants and convenience stores are becoming a growing concern to both Hollywood and Blockbuster.

Redbox operates nearly 12,900 kiosks throughout the U.S. where consumers can rent a DVD for a buck a day. It plans to introduce 7,100 more by the end of the year. Each machine holds as many as 700 DVDs and 200 movie titles. They are undermining longtime economics that have propped up the movie business, Chmielewski writes, triggering a backlash from Universal Studios, which sought to cut off Redbox's supply of hot new DVDs.

Consumers use their credit or debit cards to rent the movies, which enables Redbox to charge an additional day's rental if the DVD is not returned within a 24-hour period. A typical kiosk earns about $50,000 annually after three years in operation.

Just wait 'til one of them-there newfangled Coke machines (see above) starts running trailers on the door.

Read the whole story at Los Angeles Times »