LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) - Blockbuster Inc. shares were battered
Thursday evening after the DVD-rental chain turned in a quarterly
adjusted loss that was wider than Wall Street's projection. Meanwhile,
King Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares advanced after federal regulators
approved the company's pain-relief treatment.
Blockbuster
(BBI
0.72,
-0.14,
-16.28%)
tumbled 20 cents, or 23%, to 66 cents. The company posted an adjusted
loss of 19 cents a share for the second quarter, missing the loss
estimate of 12 cents a share by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Revenue fell to $1.02 billion from $1.3 billion last year. Analysts
expected $1.11 billion in revenue. Blockbuster's net loss narrowed to
$39.7 million, or 21 cents a share, from $44.7 million, or 23 cents a
share, in the year-ago period.
You may be wondering why I chose to highlight this apparently innocuous (unless you're a shareholder) bit of news. After all, that a company missed its earnings target and saw its shares beaten down by investors is not particularly noteworthy. Well, here is the reason:
I hate Blockbuster.
Hate it. With a capital Haich, as they say in my hometown.
Blockbuster is an anachronism: a business born in the 1980s that should never have survived this long. There should not be Blockbuster stores to rent DVDs and Blu Ray discs anymore, we should be downloading these from our cable companies or whoever provides our TV services. Why are we driving to the store to pick up a movie when it could flow, with zero carbon footprint from Rogers to our house? And then a few days later, we have to go back, like dopes, and return the damn thing? Makes no sense. Might as well be renting video discs of the final episode of MASH while we're at it.
By the way, why anyone would choose to invest in a company that hasn't
offered a cutting edge service since Reagan was in office is beyond me.
Hey Blockbuster investors, as long as you're lining up with 1980s
kitsch, how about reviving
Consumers Distributing while you're at it?
Rogers already offers movies on demand but the selection is pitiful. There shouldn't be 20 movies available, for goodness' sake, it's 2009! EVERY movie should be available by now. So come on Rogers, get on with it and put the dinosaur out of its misery!
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