The big-name video rental outlets around teh country are changing, filling up with a range of new products from CDs to mobile phone upgrades. Derek O'Connor reports on an industry refusing to stand still in the faceof the latest entertainment technology.
IT'S ALL about convergence. One day, in the none-too-distant-future, or so we've been told for years now, you'll land home after a hard day's graft, settle down in front of your one-stop, multi-purpose home entertainment unit and pick up that single remote control (imagine!). Then, depending on the mood you're in, you'll watch the telly, go online to check your email, stick on a DVD, bang in a Playstation game or play the CD you've just downloaded . . . Possibly all at the same time.
Guess what? The future is now. Convergence? Whatever. For the punter, it's all about convenience.
"From an Irish viewpoint,the market is accelerating at a furious pace and the consumer is dictating that market," says Martin Higgins, managing director of Xtra-vision. "The retail outlets have to keep on the cutting edge. We're looking at the situation, aggregating the proposition, and developing the brand."
Translation: a quiet revolution has taken place in our consumer habits. Walk into any major Xtra-vision store, say, between Greenhills and Letterkenny, for example, and you'll find yourself besieged by product. It's not just about renting this week's newest DVD any more. The Irish entertainment giant has made a long-anticipated leap into CD sales, devoting crucial retail space to the week's Top 20 albums, alongside a healthy complement of back-catalogue titles supported by music DVD titles. What's more, punters are snapping them up.
The increasingly ubiquitous "twofer" deal, as they refer to it in the industry, always works a treat. Pop in for a DVD for the kids, for example, which you end up buying as opposed to renting (sure, there's only a few quid in the difference), and walk out with the new Coldplay album, Medal of Honor: European Assault for the PS2, and an upgrade for your mobile phone. It's not a hypothetitical scenario, nor a minor item on Tomorrow's World. It's a consumer reality.
Parallel to this period of unprecedented growth has been the quiet death of the format that once provided the average Xtra-vision branch with its entire stock - bye-bye, VHS. Now that the video store as we knew it is on its way to becoming a thing of the past, replaced by one-stop technology outlets, there's no room for an outdated and downright clunky format, save perhaps a forlorn dump bin in the corner. The new wave of DVD player/recorders should prove the final nail in the format's coffin; even Higgins predicts that the major players will forego the production of VHS video titles within the next six months or so.
Strangely enough, no one's getting too emotional about it.
"We're all connoisseurs these days, and DVD is a format that serves that notion perfectly," says Mark Kavanagh, manager of Bolton Video, a Dublin institution for some two decades and one of the last independent rental outlets on the northside. Bolton is currently offloading its entire VHS stock at four titles for a tenner.
"We all know about director's cuts, box sets, extra features, widescreen formats and all that," Kavanagh adds. "At the same time, everybody's updating their home systems, getting a big flat-screen telly and 5:1 digital sound and whatnot; it's all about newer, bigger, better. Where the big stores would have 20 copies of a brand new title, now they might have 100 copies on DVD, most of which will be available to buy a fortnight later.
"People aren't even as interested in renting back-catalogue titles; they'll buy the classics, the Godfather and Star Wars and Evil Dead movies, and not bother with the rest. That's convenience culture for you right there."
Then there's the competition. With billions of euros in potential income up for grabs (like CD, the DVD is cheaper to produce than previous formats, meaning more income for distributors and retailers alike), the last few years have seen supermarket chains occupy a important part of the "package media" market. Not to be underestimated, either, is the dent that bootleggers are making in those profits; a recent pirate DVD factory uncovered in Duleek, Co Meath, was said to be producing an estimated three million illegal discs a year, a hefty chunk of change by anyone's standards.
"You have to engage, offer supply on demand, give the customer what they want and what they want now. It's amazing how many people expected Xtra-vision to be selling CDs before we did, for example. Credibility is a huge factor; it's not enough to have the stock, it has to be the right stock, well presented by a knowledgeable staff," says Xtra-vision's Higgins.
The key to Xtra-vision's survival, then, is to remain on top of the game by manipulating existing floor space for more product, improving locations (bigger stores in better places), increasing potential revenue streams, and continuing to offer movies, games, music and new technology on demand.
In the pipeline? Everything from camcorders to facilities for downloading music in-store. Like we said, the future is now.
Elsewhere, expect a glut of emotive childhood memoirs about popping down to the local corner video shop - on foot! - to rent the first Beverly Hills Cop. And having to make do with a slightly worn tape of Gremlins instead. Think Alice Taylor in Betamax. Tough times, kids.
