Rogers Video will be closing 63 of their 156 Canadian stores by the end of January, according to the Toronto Star.
The company had reported a 46% reduction in revenue in October, having obtained $60 million in profits in the first three quarters of 2011 instead of $111 million in 2011. (Q3 2011).
Rogers had closed 20 video stores in 2010 and is currently revamping their stores in response to the market, to concentrate on smartphone and tablet sales. They had also closed their direct mail rental service, Rogers Video Direct, this month.
I think they’ll eventually just offer DVD and blu-ray rentals in kiosks, like Zip.ca red kiosks, at their stores.
Best Buy have been offering videos in kiosks at select Mac’s locations in western Canada for a while now and I’m guessing they will start introducing these machines though-out Canada, hopefully in both Mac’s and Best Buy stores.
I’ve suggested the later in a survey with Best Buy and I’m hoping to drop in and rent films at my local stores to save on internet bandwidth soon. My Youtube viewing gobbles up quite allot of bandwidth. 🙂
At the moment the only kiosks I have access to here in Ottawa are the zip.ca kiosks, which are still relatively rare and inconveniently located for me. But they are expanding.