Niche DVD Suppliers Thrive in the Shadows of Rental Giants
Netflix and Blockbuster aren’t the only sources of subscription DVD rentals out there. In the past few years, growing along side the giants, small niche services have also cropped up, and continue to crop up almost monthly. RentAnime, started up by independent video store owner Gene Fields, focuses its entire DVD collection on Japanese animation, much of which is very rare and hard to find, and most of which is not covered by broader subscription service giants like Netflix.
Similar niche services include HorrorSource, a movie rental service dedicated to the cult-arific horror flicks from the 70’s and 80’s, and GreenCine, which caters to a more sophisticated crowd (“Not the ‘National Treasure’ crowd, according to them), offering the best in documentary, foreign, independent, and other more erudite film.
Netflix is not worried however, according to an article at ZDnet. “If you want to be successful in this business,†says Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy, “it’s important that you be large or figure out how to get large fast.â€Â
Large they are not, but these niche services could become more of a thorn in the side of the 3,000,000+ subscriber service than they realize. I recall the music industry saying something similar in the 1990s about those pesky MP3s. Netfix and Blockbuster don’t seem ready to admit that this market is new and highly volatile.
So, the question is, will these niche services continue to cohabitate with the bigger, broader services, or will they be crushed under their massive feet? Or, will the smaller markets turn out to become the mammals of the ice age, surviving in the shadows of massive dinosaurs, biding there time, until one day… SMASH. Big giants aren’t always fit to survive. Only time will tell.