. In spite of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, AppleTV+, Paramount+, MubiGo and the ever-expanding list of digital platforms seeking to kill off disc technology, For Your Eyes Only remains a local stalwart in Forest Hill, south east London, with the most dedicated of its 9,000 customers coming in every other day. This week, Blockbuster began on Netflix - a workplace comedy set in the former megachain's last outpost, where its employees must "fight to stay relevant". There is no shortage of irony in the show being streamed on the very platform that hastened the closure of Blockbuster's 500 UK shops in 2013, nor the fact that the rising costs of Netflix et al have driven customers back to Gulam Charania's slow-tech shop. Charania, who is in his mid-60s (but doesn't want to disclose his exact age) says customers 'are fed up of online services, which are costing more and more.' With a million people having cut back on their subscriptions this year, according to new figures, renting three DVDs for £7 - including new releases like Top Gun, of which all copies are on loan when I visit - is proving gentler on the purse. Like the vinyl resurgence before it, Charania hopes a second coming may be afoot. He took over For Your Eyes Only in 1998 when, working as a DVD wholesaler with his father, the then-owners of the shop (then named Film on Film) were looking to sell up. Within a few years, business was booming - both locally, where chains Blockbuster and Apollo had moved in over the road and offered to buy Charania out - and around the world, too. Film rental had become a ubiquitous Friday night affair, with nearly 30,000 shops in t){kind=link}
Even in the age of the streaming giants, London’s last surviving DVD rental shop has thousands of customers. What keeps them coming back?
Since 1998 there have been two cars through the shopfront of DVD rental store For Your Eyes Only, two attempted buyouts from major chains, and an avalanche of streaming services threatening to render it obsolete. But the shop – one of the last rental outfits in Britain – is still standing (and, following May’s crash, with a shiner-than-before facade). In spite of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, AppleTV+, Paramount+, MubiGo and the ever-expanding list of digital platforms seeking to kill off disc technology, For Your Eyes Only remains a local stalwart in Forest Hill, south east London, with the most dedicated of its 9,000 customers coming in every other day.
This week, Blockbuster began on Netflix – a workplace comedy set in the former megachain’s last outpost, where its employees must “fight to stay relevant”. There is no shortage of irony in the show being streamed on the very platform that hastened the closure of Blockbuster’s 500 UK shops in 2013, nor the fact that the rising costs of Netflix et al have driven customers back to Gulam Charania’s slow-tech shop.
Charania, who is in his mid-60s (but doesn’t want to disclose his exact age) says customers “are fed up of online services, which are costing more and more.” With a million people having cut back on their subscriptions this year, according to new figures, renting three DVDs for £7 – including new releases like Top Gun, of which all copies are on loan when I visit – is proving gentler on the purse. Like the vinyl resurgence before it, Charania hopes a second coming may be afoot.
He took over For Your Eyes Only in 1998 when, working as a DVD wholesaler with his father, the then-owners of the shop (then named Film on Film) were looking to sell up. Within a few years, business was booming – both locally, where chains Blockbuster and Apollo had moved in over the road and offered to buy Charania out – and around the world, too. Film rental had become a ubiquitous Friday night affair, with nearly 30,000 shops in the US offering VHS tapes and DVDs at a fraction of the cost of going to the cinema, or buying outright. By 2003, home video revenue was racking up £21bn per year.