• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 8, 2013

The digital media world saw this coming a long time ago, since there is virtually no need for brick-and-mortar retail stores to rent or sell DVDs: the remaining Blockbuster Video retail outlets -- some 300 stores --  will be closing.There were once around 9,000 Blockbuster stores, the most of any bricks-and-mortar DVD rental/sales retailer.

Dish Network, which bought the remains of Blockbuster after a bankruptcy auction in 2011, made the decision. Dish believed that Blockbuster stores could give it a  physical storefront/retailing face to help sell all kinds of stuff including satellite TV programming packages and equipment.

The demise of DVD rental/sales stores was talked up long before the current digital revolution.

In the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, the cable industry’s pay-per-view operations – which allowed consumers to rent specific movie titles via their cable systems -- were getting some success and notoriety. 

At the same time Blockbuster continued to have a decent and growing business. Still, for years, PPV proponents believe it wouldn’t be long before their operations would defeat the likes of Blockbuster. That never happened.

The logic of why Blockbuster persisted went something like this: Consumers like to leave their house to go shopping in real time, in order to touch and hold real products like DVDs.

Two decades later, that appears to be less of an issue. The only products consumers now want to hold in their living rooms -- besides TV remotes -- are smartphones or tablets.

What comes next? For years, we have heard about the troubling times for all electronics-driven brick-and-mortar stores such as Best Buy.  We can now get all our personal electronic devices more easily online through Amazon and other places.

So many of those PPV proponents should have broadened their prognostications beyond electronic delivery of on-demand TV programming. Even then, they weren’t entirely wrong, just a couple of decades delayed.

Well-established electronic brand names could still be important. A Dish executive said, “We continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings.”

If you can’t beat them, join them -- if it’s not too late. Brick-and-mortar stores? Big-time movies still play in big buildings.