FEWER VIDEO STORES, MORE RENTALS

Shutting down hundreds of video rental stores has not hurt the rental business and may in fact be helping it. Or so one might conclude from a report by Portland, OR-based Rentrak. According to the company, revenue from Blu-ray and DVD rentals increased 5.8 percent in the second quarter to $1.48 billion. In a statement, David Paiko, Rentrak’s vice president of home video, said, “While overall brick-and-mortar rentals declined, many of the larger brick-and-mortar stores’ average revenue per store increased versus last year, which indicates that the lesser-performing stores are the ones being closed and the remaining stronger-performing stores are doing well.” Over the past year, Blockbuster has closed more than 1,000 stores and Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery closed more than 2,000 as it went out of business.