Posted on 07/09/2024 12:40:22 PM PDT by Red Badger
If you use Redbox’s streaming service, you may have noticed you can’t stream the movies you bought or even the free collection of movies they offer. Earlier today, Redbox’s website stopped working. Now it just displaying an error message where you would typically find the free movies and movies or TV shows for sale.
For now, the issue is limited to Redbox, as Crackle, also owned by the same company, is still working. The exact cause of the issue is unknown and Cord Cutters News has reached out to Redbox for comment. If we hear back we will update our story.
For now, though, if you have movies on the Redbox streaming services that you bought, you will need to wait and see what happens. Likely, this is a technical glitch as the company just secured $8 million in new funding.
Last month, Chicken Soup for The Soul Entertainment, the parent company behind Redbox, Crackel, and the streaming service of the same name, announced that the entire board of directors and board of managers of each subsidiary of the company other than William J. Rouhana, Jr., had been fired. This was quickly followed by news that Redbox was filing for bankruptcy.
Now, according to a report from Bloomberg, HPS has agreed to give the company an $8 million load, but as part of the deal, Redbox’s parent company must reinstate the independent members of its board that were fired last month. Now the judge over seeing this bankruptcy has agreed to the plan.
Before this, employees had not been paid and benefits like health insurance had been canceled. With this loan, employees will be paid and health insurance will also be funded.
Recently the company missed a $4 million payment to NBCUniversal as a part of its settlement over unpaid royalties. Now, it faces a possible order to pay all the $16.7 million it owes NBCUniversal as questions about the future of the company grow. NBCUniversal sued, saying Redbox had not been paying royalties. It agreed to a payment plan but had missed the first payment.
Chicken Soup for The Soul Entertainment is in a tough situation after acquiring Redbox in 2022 for $50 million in stock and assumption of $325 million in debt. Add in a shaky media environment with cratering ad revenue and quarterly losses, and the company’s future is very much in the air. In August, CEO Rouhana said that the company was holding a strategic review to evaluate its opportunities, which is business speak for putting itself up for sale.
Last year, Chicken Soup for The Soul Entertainment announced that it was in active discussions for a potential sale but so far nothing has come from these talks.
Like many media companies, the company has been hit by a soft ad market that has negatively impacted revenues. For a company that heavily relies on ad-supported streaming, this market must negatively impact the service. Right now, the company seems confident that they will be able to work through these issues and pay their partners. We will have to wait and see what happens.
“You’ll own nothing, and we’ll be able to screw you six ways from sunday”
Klaus Schwab
This is why I own physical media. I have never bought a digital show or movie. I’ll take the DVD, thank you. I dont mind getting up and walking over and physically inserting the DVD into the player.
The Intellectual Property owners want that to stop.
You can show that movie over and over again to anybody you wish.
They want to charge you over and over again via streaming.................
I also buy the dvds. I then rip the film into a file, put the file on my Plex server, and then am able to stream the movie to myself on any device.
Yes...the thing is, you can legally own a copy of the movie on the digital platform, but you don’t own the right to access it on that platform. You can be charged for accessing the platform to view it, and of course if the platform shuts down, your ownership of the copy doesn’t mean diddly.
Indeed coming soon a screen from 1984 that never shuts off.
I do listen to music over and over again so I did buy records, cassettes and CDs so I could listen to them repeatedly, I have never really been into watching movies multiple times so I have very few DVDs.
I can’t imagine buying a movie on a streaming service.
The younger generations do.
Us oldsters will all die off eventually and Goodwill will be flooded with DVDs, CDs and Blu-Rays and nothing to play them on.
Have you noticed that car mfrs don’t put CD players in new cars anymore?................
Or at least something that you can download and play back any time you like?
Storage is really cheap.
Perfect example of why I don’t buy digital only things...give me a physical copy to keep in case the site goes down or the company goes bankrupt - else it’s just delayed theft.
I refuse to “own” digital media that is tied to an account, especially from Amazon (Kindle books, online movies and music). I have purchased some eBooks, but those are DRM-free and are located on my own drives. Those movies, TV shows, and albums we wish to own are on physical media.
Kind of like paying a painter continuously, as once he paints your house, you can see it day after day, for years.
But, he was only paid once for his efforts.
Yep.... saw this coming when they quit putting out physical discs for PC gaming some time ago. They can shove the digital where the sun don’t shine.
It was good while it lasted.
I stream them when I get $1 deals
I used to rent (very inexpensive fees yrs ago) DVDs from their boxes at retail locations. Also bought cheap used ones from them.
The steam sales are pretty sweet though.
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