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By Helen Storey
Staff Writer
6 November 2009
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THIS week sees the announcement of a new DVD rental service from budget supermarket Lidl, LoveFilm announcing their intention to stick by Royal Mail for their delivery services and another hypothesis as to why DVD sales have fallen.
Lidl to offer DVD rental
WE usually go to Lidl when we want an 8p can of baked beans or a box of broken biscuits but the budget supermarket and purveyor of cheap German sausage is to start offering an online DVD rental service too.
The new rental service, called LidlMovies ("Big movies. Lidl Prices.") will be cheaper than rivals LoveFilm and Blockbuster with monthly subscriptions starting from a pocket-pleasing £3.32 with a long 30-day free trial.
Simon Wilson, from Lidl, said: "People value Lidl for its quality food offering at rock bottom prices. The online DVD rental service is offering the same proposition on a different platform - first-class service at the lowest price and all of that from the convenience of your home."
The service, which boasts over 65,000 titles, is however powered by OutNow (formerly MyMovieStream) and we would be lying if we said they'd only ever had positive reviews.
Do your research before taking out this package or check back to our review soon to see whether Lidl can better their powered-by service.
LoveFilm sticks with Royal Mail
Despite whispers on the grapevine that LoveFilm was about to ditch Royal Mail in light of the postal strikes, the online rental giant has now confirmed that it will be sticking to the postal carriers like a well-licked stamp.
"We continue to work with Royal Mail. They are the best at first class delivery next day to the doorstep," said Simon Calver, LoveFilm chief executive.
As we reported only two weeks ago, the postal strikes have been having major effects on online rental customers - with some discs not being delivered for up to three weeks.
LoveFilm has confirmed that it has been increasing its on-demand streaming service, and has been assuring customers that they will not miss out on their monthly DVD allowance.
Hollywood vs. DVD rental rumbles on
Sometimes it's like we never hear the end of people predicting that the end is nigh for DVD sales. The figures that now seem terminally droopy much to the ire of Hollywood Executives who seem hell-bent on blaming (amongst other things) DVD rental.
They may have a point. Market research company, NPD Group, reckons the drop of DVD sales in the US is due to the booming rental kiosk business and estimates the vending market share will reach 30% by the end of the year.
The fall in DVD sales, which according to Screen Digest, fell from $16.6bn to a paltry $14.5bn last year, is prompting Hollywood studios to get cold feet about kiosk rental, with some studios refusing to sell new releases to Redbox, the kiosk owners, until at least 28 days after their general release to the public.
Could the trend take off over here? We've reported on the DVD kiosks a few times over the last year, including plans to introduce 18 DVD rental kiosks across Tesco stores in the UK, but, as yet, we haven't heard people going mad over them.
It seems far more likely that us Brits have got used to our postal DVD services and, while the idea of getting a DVD rental with your groceries is nice, someone's going to have the job of taking it back.
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