Netflix announced Tuesday that it will ditch the operation that first put it into business a quarter century ago -- renting DVD's by mail.
"After an incredible 25 year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year," Netflix said in a blog post. "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as the business continues to shrink that’s going to become increasingly difficult. So we want to go out on a high, and will be shipping our final discs on September 29, 2023."
Netflix's DVD unit has steadily declined in recent years, with revenue falling to $146 million in 2022 vs. $183 million in 2021 and $239 million in 2020.
The Netflix announcement was somewhat at odds with a deal touted just 24 hours earlier by Chicken Soup For the Soul Entertainment, which pledged to put 1,500 additional Redbox kiosks into Dollar General Stores over the next few years.
Chicken Soup CRO Philippe Guelton told Next TV at NAB Sunday that with the theatrical pipeline coming back online, and the re-emergence of in-demand titles at kiosks, the Redbox unit is once again seeing action on the physical media side.
Netflix obviously sees things differently.
In 2011, the company embarked on a famously ill-fated attempt to spin off its DVD rental business in an operation called Qwikster.
It seems likely that Netflix won't face the same kind of customer backlash this time around.
"Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home — and they paved the way for the shift to streaming," Netflix added in its customer note Tuesday. "From the beginning, our members loved the choice and control that direct-to-consumer entertainment offered: the wide variety of the titles and the ability to binge watch entire series. DVDs also led to our first foray into original programming — with Red Envelope Entertainment titles including Sherrybaby and Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion.
"We feel so privileged to have been able to share movie nights with our DVD members for so long, so proud of what our employees achieved and excited to continue pleasing entertainment fans for many more decades to come," Netflix added.
