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- THE WEEK, Page 19BUSINESSA Blockbuster Deal
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- A video-rental giant decides to get into the music business,
- big-time
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- The world's largest video-rental chain has decided to market
- music as well as films. Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. has
- agreed to pay $185 million, including debt-assumption, for two
- record chains: Music Plus, based in Southern California, and
- Sound Warehouse, many of whose stores are in Texas. The
- combined 236 outlets immediately make Blockbuster the seventh
- largest U.S. record retailer, controlling about 4% of an $8
- billion annual market. Despite soaring profits -- Blockbuster's
- third-quarter revenue jumped 24%, to $283.7 million -- the new
- acquisitions seem to reflect an industry assumption that the
- video-rental market is softening and that increasingly pervasive
- pay-per-view movies on cable will further slake the demand. But
- Blockbuster now faces some entrenched and ferociously
- competitive rivals in music retailing, like Musicland Stores
- Corp, not the mom-and-pop outlets it bulldozed while
- revolutionizing video rental in the 1980s.
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