Blockbuster eyes streaming to TVs
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Apple TV is getting some competition from Blockbuster. — The home video giant is developing a set-top device for streaming films directly to TV sets and is expected to announce the offering sometime this month.
Context & Ripple Effects
Blockbuster's move into TV-connected streaming comes roughly a year after Apple TV launched and was touted as a potential threat to both TiVo and Netflix, with early reviews framing it against Blu-ray, DVD, and HD cable in head-to-head comparisons. For a rental giant whose business centers on physical stores, a set-top streamer is an attempt to defend its home-video franchise as delivery shifts from discs to broadband.
First-order effects
- Blockbuster would move from disc rentals toward direct-to-TV digital distribution, putting it in immediate head-to-head competition with Apple TV for living-room movie streaming.
- Apple faces its first major incumbent challenger in the nascent TV-streaming hardware market, where it had so far competed mainly against TiVo, Netflix's watch-instantly service, and cable/satellite VOD.
Second-order effects
- Netflix, TiVo, and cable operators would likely accelerate their own set-top or connected-TV offerings rather than cede the category, intensifying price and content-licensing competition.
- Hollywood studios gain a second major bidding counterparty for digital distribution rights, potentially improving licensing terms across the board as Blockbuster and Apple compete for catalogs.
Third-order effects
- If store-based retailers can pivot to streaming hardware, the living room becomes the decisive battleground for home entertainment, eroding the physical-disc retail model that underpinned Blockbuster's core business.
- The pattern points toward media companies and device makers converging on integrated hardware-plus-content platforms — a structure that later drew Apple deeper into Hollywood itself, from courting studio executives for a television product to eventually building original programming.
The trend: This is an early data point in the shift of home entertainment from physical media retail to internet-delivered streaming controlled by device-and-platform companies.