Blockbuster on demand

With nearly everything available online these days and the ability to record live TV and order movies from the comfort of your home, it is no surprise that video rental giant, Blockbuster, was forced to declare bankruptcy in September of last year. What is surprising, however, is that we may not have seen the end of the Blockbuster name.

Although Blockbuster stores have been rapidly closing worldwide, there may soon be a way to stream Blockbuster movies online.Dish Network Corp, the second-largest U.S. satellite TV company after DirecTV, won Blockbuster Inc in a bankruptcy auction last year and is currently negotiating deals to deliver movies to phones and iPads, putting it in competition with Netflix.

Todd Mitchell, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers, was quoted as saying, "This is very clever, Dish can transition Blockbuster from a retail to a streaming model so you have basically a Netflix-like offering.

Unfortunately for Blockbuster, which in its prime in 2002 had a market value of $5 billion, it would seem there is just no competing with the mail-order and now digital alternatives that have slowly taken over. Could this mark the beginning of the end for old-fashioned video rental stores?