Seeing the familiar BlockBuster stores plastered with BIG SALE and CLOSING DOWN signs is the second time I have seen this industry fade away.  The Video stores of the 1980s went the same way as Blockbuster emerged supreme.  But time marches on and the trip to the DVD store, and even the DVD is strating to look a little "8 Track" these days. 

Desite it's bankruptcy, Blockbuster has said that business will go on as usual as it wipes out its $900 million in debt.  More than 80% of the company's senior noteholders have agreed to support the plan and provide $125 million in "debtor-in-possession" financing to help support Blockbuster's operations while it undergoes the restructure. Under the Ch. 11, bonds will be converted into equity.

This year Blockbuster has already shuttered 1,000 stores, and reports have surfaced that another 500 to 800 closures are possible.

Blockbuster has been questioned from as far back as 1999, when Amazon(AMZN_) and Netflix(NFLX_) entered the market, about the future of fixed stores.  Planet Hollywood, a smaller competing chian has already vanished.  Newer options make a nonsense of the BlockBuster model, as technology like Roku boxes combined with Netflix and Hulu make real time access to video de riguer. 

Can Blockbuster survive?  Some say only as a clone of Netflix or the kiosk vendors inside supermarkets.  Perhaps they can adapt the Netflix streaming model, and use their market power to access more current film content?  But it sure looks like they have become a reactive company lacking a strategy in a vfery competitive market.

Perhaps it has been a me-too company for too long now - showing little innovation.  For many years its business model seemed to be based on extortionate late-fees, and it only reluctantly dropped them, as competitors re-invented its core industry.  It is fated to become a Harvard Business School Case Study - a fitting grave-yard for hubristic management and short sighted planning.