Thinking of stopping by the Redbox machine at your local supermarket, gas station or drugstore? Better double check the prices before you confirm your rental; they may be going up.
Last month, DVD and streaming rental service provider Netflix created a firestorm of controversy by upping its own price points. The company changed its package from a $9.99 plan that included both streaming content and discs by mail to a plan that would cost nearly $16 for the same combination of services. This nearly 60 percent price hike resulted in many angry subscribers dropping the service.
Many Netflix customers opted to flee to Blockbuster or Wal-Mart’s streaming VUDU service. Others brought their business to Redbox, the movie and game rental kiosks owned by Coinstar, a company famous for its green-colored machines that count your change for you.
Redbox’s initial pricing charged one dollar a day for DVD rentals, as well as $1.50 a day for Blu-Ray discs and $2.00 a day for video game rentals. Now, however, Coinstar has reportedly been testing higher priced Redbox kiosks in the Austin, Texas area.
The new pricing would run customers $1.20 per night for a DVD rental, though the company has reportedly considered the idea of charging a higher fee for the first night’s rental, reverting to the one dollar charge for subsequent nights. Blu-Ray and video game prices would remain the same.
Eric Wold, an analyst for Merriman Capital, recently told Forbes that he thought the price increase would help defray costs for the company which may be facing higher prices from movie studios. The full-scale rollout of the price increase is expected to occur sometime before the start of 2012.
So, if you want to watch the movie 2012, you may have to pay a little bit more for it, whether it is through your Netflix account or your local Redbox kiosk. But don’t worry, though. It’s a small price increase; it’s not the end of the world.
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Rich Steeves is a TMCnet copy editor. He taught writing for nine years. He has also worked as an editorial assistant at Penny Publications. He has written short stories, newspaper columns, blogs and recently published his first novel. He attended The George Washington University where he received his bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
