The cutthroat movie rental biz has claimed another victim. After rolling out its “Spot. The Difference” movie rental kiosks this spring. Public Media Works (PMW) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
PMW’s kiosk business was launched in an attempt to capture a share of the highly competitive kiosk rental market from leaders Redbox and Blockbuster Express.
PMW CEO Martin Greenwald offered the following on his company’s bankruptcy filing:
“We believe that Chapter 11 is necessary to restructure the company’s outstanding debt, and establish a sustainable, long-term capital structure for the business . . . We have worked tirelessly during the past several months to develop our plans, address our existing financial obligations and seek further funding . . . Our goal is to emerge from Chapter 11 as soon as possible.”
Will PMW emerge from bankruptcy rejuvenated and ready to take on Redbox, or is this the beginning of the end for the company that thought it could steal a share of the kiosk market?
(via Home Media Magazine)
sounds like someone came along with some ‘spot’ remover.
Here’s the thing, companies are stupid now. It hasn’t always been that way, but now stupidity is more common than not. There are better ways to make money than to copy someone who has a giant head start and try to take some from them. It’s like winning a race by starting 30 minutes after everyone else. Redbox is big because they came up with a new idea and pushed it down our throats. Netflix is big because they came up with a new approach to two ideas and made them work. Amazon is big because they embraced a newish idea (online store). Very rarely does a “copycat” become big.
I disagree. Businesses have always been started by people and thus many of them have always been stupid. The difference now is just that we hear of every failure thanks to the interwebs.
As for Copycat business models — those can work too because often times a business model is good but the people running it are not. If everybody stayed out of business because they thought the product/service couldn’t be done we would have only 1 option for type of car to drive, soda to drink, jeans to wear, et cetera.
This RedBox knockoff sounds stupid “Spot” and I don’t see then offering anything better, let alone different, but better is the real problem.