Family Video

[BillyGr]

There are three locations in the Green Bay area. Antiquated: yes, defunct: no. They still do good business judging by the cars in the parking lot.

People also still use broadcast TV (like me), so that is not going anywhere, either. I do that to avoid rising cable bills, plus the new ATSC standard was an improvement over the old NTSC standard, with new subchannels being added every year to most of the stations in my area.

I also use a router to get my internet from a neighboring wifi hotspot.

I'd suspect that many people who have had cable or satellite TV for some time may not even realize just how many options there are now in free broadcast TV.  For instance here, every major station (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, FOX, CW) have at least 2 additional subchannels, some have three - so that is over 20 things on at any given time, quite a bit more choice than the 7 or so in the pre-digital days!

[TheFugitive]

The last Family Video store in this area (PA Route 51 in Brentwood) has started its
Going Out of Business Sale.

To my knowledge this is the last place in Pittsburgh where one can rent a physical
copy of a movie (though they can still be borrowed from Carnegie Library).

[TheFugitive]

That Family Video is now closed.
There is a dumpster overflowing with fixtures out in the parking lot.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Family Video has 775 stores in the US and Canada. Here's a list of states and provinces that have stores:

Alabama (1 store)

Illinois (106 stores)

Indiana (80 stores)

Iowa (36 stores)

Kansas (24 stores)

Kentucky (23 stores)

Michigan (115 stores)

Minnesota (17 stores)

Missouri (36 stores)

Nebraska (5 stores)

New York State (24 stores)

North Carolina (21 stores)

Ohio (96 stores)

Oklahoma (29 stores)

Ontario (3 stores)

Pennsylvania (22 stores)

South Carolina (7 stores)

Tennessee (7 stores)

Texas (22 stores)

Wisconsin (60 stores)



This is NOT defunct retail. I did the research on their website's locator (and Google maps for their Canadian locations) to debunk that myth.

There are people out there who dislike Netflix and Redbox that would prefer to rent DVDs/Blu-Rays/video games from a Family Video in the American Midwest, where they can see what the DVDs/Blu-Rays/video games look like. They also have better service than Blockbuster ever did.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

The Today Show just released a YouTube video on how they're thriving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akyl-vMEZvE

The rise of on-demand streaming services is a major reason why local video-rental stores like Blockbuster have gone out of business. But there is one rental chain that is staying afloat.
In this week’s Sunday Spotlight, NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reports on the company pulling off a business miracle with 750 brick-and-mortar video stores across the U.S. and Canada.

Watch the video and leave a comment.

Does that look defunct? No it doesn't.

(Move this topic to "Other Current Retail," please?)

[buzz86us]

lol I don't even own anything that can play a disc anymore..

[giantsfan2016]

lol I don't even own anything that can play a disc anymore..

I am in my 30s and I still watch movies on DVD and when have rented from Redbox from time time to time, but I will also DVR stuff. I also still listen to terrestrial radio and CDs, but I sometimes listen to an out of market station on my Smart phone.

I have a soon-to-be 24 year old friend. I met him when he was 21. He prefers the real radio than listening to a streaming service such as Pandora (although he does listen to Pandora on occasion). He likes the DJ chatter and the interaction with the callers on-air. Not to mention he won concert tickets back when he was 18.  He has an extensive DVD (and Blu-Ray) collection, but also has a Netflix subscription.

His soon-to-be 19 year old brother does not like listening to the radio. He always listens to Pandora.  It's gotten to the point that if he and his brother are in the car together he hides the USB cable, forcing him to listen to the radio.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

lol I don't even own anything that can play a disc anymore..

I am in my 30s and I still watch movies on DVD and when have rented from Redbox from time time to time, but I will also DVR stuff. I also still listen to terrestrial radio and CDs, but I sometimes listen to an out of market station on my Smart phone.

I have a soon-to-be 24 year old friend. I met him when he was 21. He prefers the real radio than listening to a streaming service such as Pandora (although he does listen to Pandora on occasion). He likes the DJ chatter and the interaction with the callers on-air. Not to mention he won concert tickets back when he was 18.  He has an extensive DVD (and Blu-Ray) collection, but also has a Netflix subscription.

His soon-to-be 19 year old brother does not like listening to the radio. He always listens to Pandora.  It's gotten to the point that if he and his brother are in the car together he hides the USB cable, forcing him to listen to the radio.

Off topic...

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Keith Hoogland, president of Family Video, in front of a company outlet in Glenview, Illinois.


The interior of a Family Video store in Glenview, Illinois.

The Last Video Chain: The Inside Story Of Family Video And Its $400 Million Owner
Feb 21, 2017 @ 06:00 AM
By Noah Kirsch, Forbes Magazine

IN GRANITE CITY, ILLINOIS, a sleepy town of 29,000 where the laws of time seem not to apply, a just-opened Family Video storefront beckons customers with signs promoting the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Inside, long rows of DVDs line aisles festooned with placards offering two movie rentals for a dollar, and at the register a smiling cashier greets regulars by name.

Yes, the year is 2017â€"and the Granite City store is defying odds, humming along in an industry most people assume has ceased to exist. In fact, the business is "doing gangbusters," says its owner, Keith Hoogland, who has grown Family Video into a sprawling chain of 759 locations spread across 19 states and Canada, with a concentration in the Midwest and rural America and with more grand openings on the way. "I'm 57 years old," says Hoogland, "and this is the most exciting time I've ever had in my life."

Operating from an unassuming two-story office building in Glenview, Illinois, 20 minutes northwest of Chicago, Family Video rents DVDs to loyal customers enamored with its traditional, small-town feel. Last year the company pulled in an estimated $400 million in revenue, more than 10% of which fell to the bottom line. Started by his father in 1978, the chain has grown dramatically under Hoogland's watch, and he holds roughly a 70% stake, with the rest split among family members. Revenue has flattened and even fallen slightly in recent years, but the decades of growth have afforded Hoogland a remarkable lifestyle: two corporate planes, multiple luxury properties and an estimated net worth north of $400 million. Sitting at his office desk, he proudly displays photos of a vast, ten-bedroom compound he recently commissioned in Turks and Caicos, alongside what he calls the "No. 1 beach in the world."

Brimming with energy, Hoogland tries to explain how all of this is possible. After all, it's been more than five years since the big video chains, Blockbuster and Movie Gallery, filed for bankruptcy, unable to compete in the digital age. At its peak Blockbuster operated more than 9,000 outlets, bringing in $6 billion in annual revenue. Today, just a few dozen of its stores remain.

Hoogland insists that Family Video had no trouble competing with bigger players, and he sees few parallels between those companies and his own. "Everybody thought the reason they went away was because of digital," he says. "But in reality that wasn't the case. They weren't very well-run businesses. They had a lot of debt, leases that were poorly negotiated, and they also were sharing revenue with studios quite a bit. They made a lot of poor decisions."

Family Video has taken a different approach. Instead of accepting discounted movies in exchange for agreements to split revenue, as Blockbuster did, it has opted to buy films outright and keep 100% of rental proceeds, which has paid off in the long run. Hoogland has also kept his stores entirely company-owned, and he keeps costs down by making many of the items needed for new locations in-houseâ€"everything from shelving to point-of-sale software. Most important, though, the company owns just about all the real estate underpinning its stores. As a result, Hoogland has been able to adapt now that sales are beginning to fall. He has shrunk the square footage of many of the video stores, put up drywall and leased out space to other companies, like Subway and H&R Block.

He has also experimented with ventures of his own, using his properties to launch 11 fitness centers, an electronics-repair chain called Digital Doc and 149 Marco's Pizza franchises (making him the brand's single largest franchisee). The businesses are managed under the umbrella of Highland Venturesâ€""Hoogland" means "Highland" in Dutch. Family Video still accounts for nearly 90% of the parent company's $450 million in annual revenue, and Forbes estimates the chain's real estate is worth as much as $750 million.

The origins of Family Video can be traced to 1946, when Keith's grandfather Clarence, a salesman, started a distribution business, Midstates Appliance & Supply Co., in Springfield, Illinois. Seven years later, Keith's father, Charlie, took over. In the 1970s the company started getting squeezed: Its core customers, mom-and-pop appliance shops, were going out of business, and its main suppliers were forgoing distributors in favor of direct sales. In 1978, left with just a few pieces of real estate and an oversupply of videocassette tapes, Charlie launched the Video Movie Club of Springfield, a precursor to Family Video and one of the first movie-rental stores in the U.S.

Even then Charlie was not convinced the business would last. While the cassettes he rented out were high tech for the time, he feared newer innovations would soon undermine his sales. To hedge against such uncertainties, Charlie, figuring the real estate under the stores would always be valuable, decided to repay the mortgages on his first locations within five yearsâ€"a policy the company has maintained ever since.

As it turned out, Charlie's initial worries proved unfoundedâ€"VHS tapes dominated the rental space for decadesâ€"but the company's early caution set the course for its expansion strategy: By the time Keith entered the business in 1983 at age 23, his father was pushing to conquer rural markets, believing that well-capitalized competitors would hold the advantage in major cities.

Today, Family Video is the dominant player in rural America, where 90% of its stores reside. There, many customers either have limited access to high-speed internet or are reluctant to adopt alternatives like Redbox, Netflix and Hulu. Inside the stores, employees greet every customer who walks through the door, often by name; kids' movies are always free to rent; and late fees are negotiable. When new locations open, the ribbon-cutting ceremony is a community affair, complete with face-painting stations, promotional giveaways and snow cone machines. Almost all of Hoogland's top executives started in one of his stores, and many employees have enjoyed benefits like full-tuition scholarships for their children.

One result is that Family Video outlets have become gathering places in many smaller towns. "If you walked in on a Friday or Saturday night, you'd be amazed at how busy our stores are," Hoogland says. "People like the experience. It's kind of like a local coffee shop."

But Family Video has more going for it than nostalgia. Most significantly, copyright agreements on motion pictures are often less stringent for physical videos than for streamed content, meaning that rental stores frequently have access to new releases weeks, or even months, before Netflix or Hulu get them. "Movies are still unique in that renting them in a store and on a disc is really the only way to circumvent rights issues that exclusively lock up content," says Tony Wible, media and entertainment analyst at Drexel Hamilton.

That advantage has helped Family Video attract business outside of broadband deserts and beyond aging loyal customers. Its typical patron is 35 to 45 years old, but Hoogland believes younger customers are coming in greater numbers. The chain's average store still pulls in roughly half a million dollars in annual revenue.

Eager to maintain momentum, Hoogland continues to work seven days a week, though he's been cutting back lately to make room for his children to enter the business. So far just one of his six kids, his eldest son, McLain, a former Marine, works at Highland Ventures. McLain runs a few of the company's smaller projects, including Highland Pure Water & Ice, which sells purified water out of kiosks next to Family Video branches located in communities with poor infrastructure.

Keith acknowledges that his movie rental empire won't last forever, but he sees Family Video as an easy way to expand his real estate portfolio, which has no obvious expiration date. The formula is simple: Open a store, use rental sales to pay off the mortgage and hold on to the property. "In five years we'll still be here," he says, grinning. "We're going to hang on for quite a while."

[JJBers]

The Last Video Chain: The Inside Story Of Family Video And Its $400 Million Owner
Feb 21, 2017 @ 06:00 AM
By Noah Kirsch, Forbes Magazine

IN GRANITE CITY, ILLINOIS, a sleepy town of 29,000 where the laws of time seem not to apply, a just-opened Family Video storefront beckons customers with signs promoting the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Inside, long rows of DVDs line aisles festooned with placards offering two movie rentals for a dollar, and at the register a smiling cashier greets regulars by name.

Yes, the year is 2017—and the Granite City store is defying odds, humming along in an industry most people assume has ceased to exist. In fact, the business is "doing gangbusters," says its owner, Keith Hoogland, who has grown Family Video into a sprawling chain of 759 locations spread across 19 states and Canada, with a concentration in the Midwest and rural America and with more grand openings on the way. "I'm 57 years old," says Hoogland, "and this is the most exciting time I've ever had in my life."

Operating from an unassuming two-story office building in Glenview, Illinois, 20 minutes northwest of Chicago, Family Video rents DVDs to loyal customers enamored with its traditional, small-town feel. Last year the company pulled in an estimated $400 million in revenue, more than 10% of which fell to the bottom line. Started by his father in 1978, the chain has grown dramatically under Hoogland's watch, and he holds roughly a 70% stake, with the rest split among family members. Revenue has flattened and even fallen slightly in recent years, but the decades of growth have afforded Hoogland a remarkable lifestyle: two corporate planes, multiple luxury properties and an estimated net worth north of $400 million. Sitting at his office desk, he proudly displays photos of a vast, ten-bedroom compound he recently commissioned in Turks and Caicos, alongside what he calls the "No. 1 beach in the world."

Brimming with energy, Hoogland tries to explain how all of this is possible. After all, it's been more than five years since the big video chains, Blockbuster and Movie Gallery, filed for bankruptcy, unable to compete in the digital age. At its peak Blockbuster operated more than 9,000 outlets, bringing in $6 billion in annual revenue. Today, just a few dozen of its stores remain.

Hoogland insists that Family Video had no trouble competing with bigger players, and he sees few parallels between those companies and his own. "Everybody thought the reason they went away was because of digital," he says. "But in reality that wasn't the case. They weren't very well-run businesses. They had a lot of debt, leases that were poorly negotiated, and they also were sharing revenue with studios quite a bit. They made a lot of poor decisions."

Family Video has taken a different approach. Instead of accepting discounted movies in exchange for agreements to split revenue, as Blockbuster did, it has opted to buy films outright and keep 100% of rental proceeds, which has paid off in the long run. Hoogland has also kept his stores entirely company-owned, and he keeps costs down by making many of the items needed for new locations in-house—everything from shelving to point-of-sale software. Most important, though, the company owns just about all the real estate underpinning its stores. As a result, Hoogland has been able to adapt now that sales are beginning to fall. He has shrunk the square footage of many of the video stores, put up drywall and leased out space to other companies, like Subway and H&R Block.

He has also experimented with ventures of his own, using his properties to launch 11 fitness centers, an electronics-repair chain called Digital Doc and 149 Marco's Pizza franchises (making him the brand's single largest franchisee). The businesses are managed under the umbrella of Highland Ventures—"Hoogland" means "Highland" in Dutch. Family Video still accounts for nearly 90% of the parent company's $450 million in annual revenue, and Forbes estimates the chain's real estate is worth as much as $750 million.

The origins of Family Video can be traced to 1946, when Keith's grandfather Clarence, a salesman, started a distribution business, Midstates Appliance & Supply Co., in Springfield, Illinois. Seven years later, Keith's father, Charlie, took over. In the 1970s the company started getting squeezed: Its core customers, mom-and-pop appliance shops, were going out of business, and its main suppliers were forgoing distributors in favor of direct sales. In 1978, left with just a few pieces of real estate and an oversupply of videocassette tapes, Charlie launched the Video Movie Club of Springfield, a precursor to Family Video and one of the first movie-rental stores in the U.S.

Even then Charlie was not convinced the business would last. While the cassettes he rented out were high tech for the time, he feared newer innovations would soon undermine his sales. To hedge against such uncertainties, Charlie, figuring the real estate under the stores would always be valuable, decided to repay the mortgages on his first locations within five years—a policy the company has maintained ever since.

As it turned out, Charlie's initial worries proved unfounded—VHS tapes dominated the rental space for decades—but the company's early caution set the course for its expansion strategy: By the time Keith entered the business in 1983 at age 23, his father was pushing to conquer rural markets, believing that well-capitalized competitors would hold the advantage in major cities.

Today, Family Video is the dominant player in rural America, where 90% of its stores reside. There, many customers either have limited access to high-speed internet or are reluctant to adopt alternatives like Redbox, Netflix and Hulu. Inside the stores, employees greet every customer who walks through the door, often by name; kids' movies are always free to rent; and late fees are negotiable. When new locations open, the ribbon-cutting ceremony is a community affair, complete with face-painting stations, promotional giveaways and snow cone machines. Almost all of Hoogland's top executives started in one of his stores, and many employees have enjoyed benefits like full-tuition scholarships for their children.

One result is that Family Video outlets have become gathering places in many smaller towns. "If you walked in on a Friday or Saturday night, you'd be amazed at how busy our stores are," Hoogland says. "People like the experience. It's kind of like a local coffee shop."

But Family Video has more going for it than nostalgia. Most significantly, copyright agreements on motion pictures are often less stringent for physical videos than for streamed content, meaning that rental stores frequently have access to new releases weeks, or even months, before Netflix or Hulu get them. "Movies are still unique in that renting them in a store and on a disc is really the only way to circumvent rights issues that exclusively lock up content," says Tony Wible, media and entertainment analyst at Drexel Hamilton.

That advantage has helped Family Video attract business outside of broadband deserts and beyond aging loyal customers. Its typical patron is 35 to 45 years old, but Hoogland believes younger customers are coming in greater numbers. The chain's average store still pulls in roughly half a million dollars in annual revenue.

Eager to maintain momentum, Hoogland continues to work seven days a week, though he's been cutting back lately to make room for his children to enter the business. So far just one of his six kids, his eldest son, McLain, a former Marine, works at Highland Ventures. McLain runs a few of the company's smaller projects, including Highland Pure Water & Ice, which sells purified water out of kiosks next to Family Video branches located in communities with poor infrastructure.

Keith acknowledges that his movie rental empire won't last forever, but he sees Family Video as an easy way to expand his real estate portfolio, which has no obvious expiration date. The formula is simple: Open a store, use rental sales to pay off the mortgage and hold on to the property. "In five years we'll still be here," he says, grinning. "We're going to hang on for quite a while."

Fake news.

Look at that logo though.

[standa]

Either you remove Family Video from defunct retail or your site will lose credibility because it doesn't believe in retail truth. No company should be in defunct retail unless it doesn't exist anymore.

[giantsfan2016]

Talk to NJxxJon. He's the sole person in charge of this forum.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Either you remove Family Video from defunct retail or your site will lose credibility because it doesn't believe in retail truth. No company should be in defunct retail unless it doesn't exist anymore.

The best thing to do is e-mail NxxJon about his mistake.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Family Video celebrating 40th anniversary amid tough times for DVD rental industry

By Tracy Swartz of Tribune News Service
Oct 9, 2018 at 2:30 PM
Oct 9, 2018 at 8:45 PM


The VHS tapes are gone, but the familiar quirks remain at the Family Video store in Glenview: the army-green carpet; the rows of "must see movies"; the staff recommendations ("Mother!" â€" "This controversial film will leave you praising or boycotting me").

The Family Video chain, which is headquartered in the north suburb, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month amid difficult times for the DVD rental industry. Family Video President Keith Hoogland admits that it's tough attracting customers in their 20s as video-on-demand and subscription streaming services grow in popularity, but he is optimistic about the future of his company because Family Video stores have become more than just places to rent movies.

"People were asking me as far back as 1985 and 1990, they'd say, 'Well, how long did you think the video business is going to go?' They were asking that question back then. The death of the video business was every two years. When DVDs came along, that was the death. When Beta went out, it was the death. When Blu-ray came along, it was the death," Hoogland said. "So I've always said I look out five years in our industry. And what I can tell you is five years from now, we'll still be in the video business."

The Hoogland family business didn't begin with videos. Keith's grandfather, Clarence Hoogland, founded Midstates Appliance and Supply Co. in 1946. The company distributed small appliances to mom-and-pop retailers. Clarence's son, Charlie, took over the business and became a distributor for Magnetic Video, which supplied videocassettes for Hollywood studios. Charlie saw an opportunity to rent his accumulation of unsold videotapes, and he opened a video movie club downstate in Springfield in 1978 that was a precursor to Family Video. Keith took over in 1994, and now there are some 700 stores in Canada and 18 U.S. states â€" mostly in the Midwest.

Family Video bills itself as the "largest movie and game rental chain in the United States" even as it has closed about 70 stores in the last five years. Hoogland said Family Video took over some of the leases once held by Blockbuster, which filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and Hollywood Video, which ceased operations the same year. Some of those converted stores didn't last because Family Video didn't own that real estate, which is an important part of Hoogland's business.

About 86 percent of the 15,300 video rental stores that were open nationwide in 2007 are now closed, the financial news site 24/7 Wall St. reported last year. Some independent brick-and-mortar stores still remain.

Family Video also faces competition from Netflix, which has operated a DVD-by-mail rental service for two decades, and Redbox, a company based in Oakbrook Terrace that facilitates DVD rental via automated kiosks.

Video-on-demand and subscription streaming services may present the toughest challenge for Family Video. Fifty-five percent of U.S. households subscribe to a paid streaming video service, up from 10 percent of households in 2009, according to Deloitte's 2018 Digital Media Trends Survey.

That's why Family Video locations have evolved from just videos and games â€" and the key is the real estate. In 2012, Family Video partnered with Marco's Pizza so customers can pick up a pizza when they grab their movies. Hoogland carved out space within the buildings that house Family Video stores for the pizza business. At the Glenview store, pizza can be ordered at a window between DVD displays. Hoogland said the move significantly reduced his overhead costs.

In a 2012 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hoogland said he hoped to open more than 350 Marco's shops nationwide by 2019. Hoogland said his company owns 144 Marco's locations now.

"We had a lot of growing pains. We didn't have the team in place, the managers, district managers, regional, so we kind of put on the brakes. We just didn't feel like we're executing as well as we'd like to," Hoogland said. "We're doing well, we just slowed it down. We're taking a breath, we're just kind of letting everything shore up, getting our operationals and our systems all in place, and then we'll start opening 30 or 40 stores again in maybe another year or so."

Hoogland's Highland Ventures operates Family Video; franchised Marco's locations; Stay Fit 24, a chain of gyms; Highland Pure Water and Ice, 24-hour kiosks that sell purified water and ice; Legacy Commercial Property; and Total Wireless, a prepaid phone business that Hoogland aims to grow at Family Video stores. Family Video makes up 35 percent to 40 percent of Highland Ventures, Hoogland said.

While the Family Video customer base has been shrinking 3 percent to 10 percent at any given location, Hoogland said the stores have been attracting millennials who have children with their kids' promotions. He said longtime customers have remained loyal because of personalized customer service and the familial atmosphere. Hoogland is banking on nostalgia to help keep Family Video around for years to come.

"We might actually last long enough where grandparents are bringing kids in to show them what a video store is and rent movies, and get popcorn and candy. There's something to that. Think about records, for example. Vinyl's kind of back and doing well, and I can see video kind of doing the same thing," he said.

For now, Family Video is in the middle of 40 days of giveaways leading up to its anniversary party and 40-cent movie rental promotion on Oct. 21. Davin Loh, a 40-year-old freelance writer who lives in northwestern Indiana, said he hopes Family Video sticks around much longer. He said he visits the store in Highland, Ind., about twice a month because he spots movies there that he can't find anywhere else, such as "Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre." He also rents games there.

"There's something about having a hard copy (of a game) and just being able to try it for one, two or five nights, then deciding whether or not you want to buy it later," Loh said.

"I think the window on video rental places is starting to close slightly, but I'm glad for what (Family Video) is, for what it's here for and whatever form it is right now currently. I'm definitely a fan."

[TheFugitive]

Despite the name Family Video survives largely because they have an adult section.

There is a subset of customers out there who want to semi-discreetly view porn
and yet are either not tech savvy or fear online invasions of privacy from using the web.

I was actually quite surprised to make a wrong turn out of their restroom and discover
that they had a sizeable adult section.

[TheFugitive]

The former Family Video location on PA 51 south is in the process of being remodeled
into an O'Reilly Auto Parts store.

[TheFugitive]

Was driving through Somerset, Pennsylvania yesterday and came across a
Family Video location that is still operating.

More amazingly I turned the corner and found a local mom-and-pop video
store operating in what otherwise appears to be a dead strip center.

Somerset County is largely rural and I'm guessing a lot of people who live there
do not yet have access to internet speeds which make a lot of streaming and downloading
possible.

I suppose wherever Family Video is hanging on it's in such locations.