Audio Video News

Redbox Sees Red Amid Bankruptcy Filing

SV Staff  |  Jul 1, 2024

The days of seeing a Redbox video vending machine in the vestibule of your local Walmart or supermarket may be coming to an end.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, the financially beleaguered parent company of Redbox, has filed for bankruptcy protection. One of the last straws leading to the filing was apparently the company’s inability to meet its payroll and pay its bills.

Redbox is in the hole with a number of retailers and movie studios, including Walmart, Walgreens, Warner Bros, Universal, and Sony, according to news reports. And it may be that Chicken Soup was doomed from the start when it took on a reported $325 million in debt to acquire Redbox in 2022.

For most of us, renting DVDs or Blu-ray Discs from Redbox is pure nostalgia even though the company still maintains a network of about 27,000 kiosks around the country, down from 36,000 when Chicken Soup acquired Redbox, according to the Associated Press. Overnight rentals cost between $2.25 and $2.50, the latter for a 4K Blu-ray Disc, offered in some, though not all, Redbox locations.

Chicken Soup for the Soul also operates ad-supported streaming and video on-demand offerings, including Redbox Live TV and Crackle.

COMMENTS
ashurbanipal's picture
Submitted by ashurbanipal on July 1, 2024 - 6:12pm

Kind of sad. I haven’t rented from Redbox for years because of limited selection but it seems wrong to see physical media slip into oblivion. It’s seems to be a rent-seekers (you vill own nussing and be happee) world right now . I suspect, as with so many things, there will be a powerful counter reaction.

mars2k's picture
Submitted by mars2k on July 4, 2024 - 1:59pm

Red Box had zero clues about customer service. I lost a midling grade Blue ray disc and these guys charged me like $50 on top of normal 3 day rental. because of "lost revenue".
The probably payed $10 for the disc. I was a good customer until I got that news and never rented frome them again. How many folks like me were out there at that particular moment of media delivery evolution?
Downloads for me ever after with the ocassional guilty pleasure disc purchase.

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