The Rise and Fall of Blockbuster: America's Video Empire

Blockbuster once owned Friday night in America, nine thousand stores, six billion dollars, and a chance to buy Netflix for fifty million. It said no. At its 2004 peak, Blockbuster ran 9,094 stores, employed more than eighty-four thousand people, and pulled in roughly six billion dollars a year, all built on cheap rentals and the late fees its own customers came to dread. This is the story of how a business addicted to those fees and to a store on every corner could not follow video into the mailbox and then onto the internet, until only a single store in Bend, Oregon was left standing. In this episode: How a Texas software man's inventory system became the first Blockbuster in 1985 Wayne Huizenga's garbage-to-video empire and a new store every 24 hours The Friday-night ritual and the $800-million-a-year late-fee machine The 2000 meeting where Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix for $50 million The disputed $40 late-fee story behind Netflix, and the failed Enron streaming deal Antioco versus Icahn, the end of late fees, the 2010 bankruptcy, and the last store on Earth Subscribe to Mainstreet Memories for more stories of the stores, brands, and Main Streets that built America and then vanished from it. #Blockbuster #Netflix #RetailHistory #Americana #MainstreetMemories #BusinessHistory #VHS #RiseAndFall #VanishedAmerica #LastBlockbuster