Netflix announced recently that it would be shutting down its DVD business and no longer ship DVDs by mail to customers. Their final day of shipping discs will be September 29.
However, it has been revealed that Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Inc., which acquired Redbox last May, tried to save Netflix’s DVD business by buying it. Netflix rejected the offer and others alike. According to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment CEO Bill Rouhana, Netflix said the disc library and website were not for sale.
“I’d like to buy it,” Rouhana said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down.
This is not the first time Rouhana has tried to buy the DVD business from Netflix. Over the years, he has shown this interest to Netflix multiple times.
“I have tried like three or four times to reach out to the corporate development people about it but just got rebuffed each time,” Rouhana said. “So when I saw it being closed. I thought, ‘Well, maybe they’ll do it now.’”
Regardless, Rouhana is looking at the bright side.
“This could be a great boon to us,” Rouhana said, “because now there are a whole bunch of people who are going to look for a new place to get their DVDs, and we’re close to 90 percent of them based on where our kiosks are located.”
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