Diversify to survive: the struggle of the DVD store to subsist

By Catalina Smart.-

Buenos Aires Herald.com Staff

"Ours is an apocaliptic mission," manager Juan Manteleone, who runs a dvd rental store in Balvanera, said with humour. DVD is a store that has been in the business for 15 years. "We only have classic movies, from the golden age of movies to the eighties. Ours is a very specific niche, made up mostly of collectionists and film students" Manteleone added.

Dvd stores offer VHS to DVD conversion services, delivery and other resources to fight against piracy and internet streaming. How do they stay afloat in trying times?

"We also also convert VHS into dvds, and other kinds of services. The truth is that internet and piracy affect us all and even though our clients don't usually buy them, they have had their share on the downsizing of the industry. Today, even a child downloads a movie for his grandfather in a very simple way," he added with a resigned air.

Manteleone's words ring true. Outside subway exits, in popular corners, people selling illegal copies of movies that have only just hit theatres are a common sight. Whether it is to avoid going to the cinema or for instant gratification, people pay some ten pesos and take a new movie home. The quality of the movies is usually rather bad.

The fact that the Internet has changed modern life forever is no news. In the last decade alone, the presence of online services has drastically changed everyday life in multiple, positive ways. Communication and entertainment will never be the same.

The appearance of the Taringa file-sharing community and the fast uprise of internet websites such as Cuevana, the Argentine based website which hosts thousands of movies and hundreds of TV shows of excellent quality -albeit illegally- has endangered the very existence of DVD and VHS store rentals. What was once a neighbourhood staple has become an increasingly rare sight. 

Laura Olguín doesn't believe that her business has been that affected by piracy. Her family has run the Videofilms rental store for 27 years in La Horqueta neighbourhood,

in the Greater Buenos Aires area of San Isidro, an upper class district.

"Naturally, our business has shrunk in the last few years. But we offer new releases as well as original movies, and we have a fixed clientele that has come to us for years." Videofilms' other store, in the equally affluent neighbourhood of Las Lomas de San Isidro, says it has even benefited with the shutdown of Blockbuster, the popular DVD rental store chain that closed at the end of 2010 after more than a decade of dominating the industry. 

"Our clients don't buy movies in the streets. They aim for quality and service. Sometimes they call us and ask if we have certain releases, because they were streaming them online and the movie failed or had some kind of trouble," Olguin added with a matter of fact air. "In addition, our delivery system offers our clients the possibility of having the movies right to their doors and then picked up. That is a major bonus, and only costs 9 pesos, which nowadays is nothing," she stressed.

Javier Berdichevsky owns a popular DVD rental store in Chacarita. He has been in the industry for the past nine years, and he calls the shots as he sees them. "All of us knew that this (downfall) was coming, but nobody could predict that it would happen at such a fast rate," he said. "I think that the past few Governments have had a deliberate attitude of 'let this business die.' They have done nothing to protect us, nothing at all," he said. 

"I am fortunate enough to have 6,000 movie titles to offer and several important TV production companies as clients, which allows us to have a certain monthly income that other stores can't count on," Berdichevsky explained.

"The real trouble is that the UAV (Argentine Video editors union) releases less and less movies each year, because it is becoming increasingly unprofitable. As a result, we will end up watching less cinema and of worse quality each time. The outlook, I must say, is rather bleak. I think we will end up with only 50 rental dvd stores in the whole country. It's sad, but we seem headed down that road." 

Olguin, Manteleone and Berdichevsky all agree that although the future is bleak, they will keep managing their stores until the business is profitable. They also have in common that their stores offer extra services; be it delivery, conversion services or having big companies as clients. That seems to be the way to keep up in troubled times.

And the three of them hope the industry never disappears completely. "There will always be people wanting to watch quality movies and pay for them. We will reach some kind of balance," Monteleone concluded, expressing the wishes and hopes of hundreds of DVD rental stores, and probably movie watchers along Argentina.