Went today, the checkout display was off, but the marquee video board was still running though...

According to a Redbox employee, new content is going to start returning to the kiosks over the next week!

First, there have been hints of that for, like, 5 months and nothing has materialized yet, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

Secondly, unless they're getting all the new releases from the major studios, I'm not sure if they can turn the ship around. And even if they got that, even then they probably couldn't save it. New Releases drive traffic. People have already gotten out of the habit of looking at Redbox for new content, since there hasn't been any for a year. Not to mention the dramatic reduction in footprint with all the location troubles.

Heard they’re all Screen Media titles, dollar store fodder in other words.

https://deadline.com/2024/06/redbox-...rs-1235976552/
The entire CSSE board of directors removed without cause by majority shareholder.

Additionally, all employees were told only yesterday that their health insurance had been terminated by the carrier over a month ago, and no claims would be paid. Despite this, they have continued taking insurance premiums from their paycheck.

If premiums are still being taken out of the paychecks and the insurance has been cancelled, the employees need to report this to the Department of Labor. It probably will not do much good at this point, but the employees need to try and fight it. In some cases it can be retroactively restarted, but I don't think that Redbox will be around much longer and the employees need to fight for it while they can.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/21/2...ent-17-million
More bad news for Redbox, they missed the first of three payments that were ordered in May, so now they have been ordered to pay the entire $16.7 million at once. Also the company that Redbox has leased their has sued and won the right to repossess their cars.

I haven't seen anyone browsing a Redbox in years. I'm continually surprised to see them in stores.

I just noticed at my local Walmart that they finally turned off the Redbox machine.

If I was one of the few remaining Redbox Employees I think I'd quit knowing a layoff was coming.

CSSE apparently missed payroll last Friday.

You can get unemployment benefits from being laid off, but not from quitting. Best to ride it out while looking for a new job.

I'm surprised they still consistently post on their social media sites. You think they would have let go of their social media person a long time ago.

Red Box's parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul hasn't made payroll in over a week.

https://deadline.com/2024/06/redbox-...73e828aa12daf1

Saw the dead carcass of one in a grocery store, with a piece of paper taped on it saying it would stop operating in May 2024 (not my usual grocery store).

As of yesterday, the one at my local Walmart is still up and running, tempting me to take home Cocaine Bear.

According to internal employee emails, CSSE filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last night.

https://deadline.com/2024/06/redbox-...cy-1235997730/

For those still at the company, they better be deep into the job hunt by now. All the warning signs were there. Don't be the last person out.

I've jumped ship from a company that eventually went out of business. Saw all the warning signs, resigned (and started another career) in January 2016. The former company went out of business by March 2016. They never paid employees for the last 2 weeks of work.

I know of one Walmart in my area that still has a redbox machine and I'll have to go into it this week to see if the machine is still there. Im guessing its probably unplugged.

Chicken Soup For The Soul was a pretty big brand in books and family films made outside the studio system. Looks like the collapse in physical media killed the business.

That may have contributed to it, but I think bigger factors were mismanagement and the huge debt load the company saddled itself with due to the acquisition.

I just checked the Redbox VOD app and it's now gone offline. I assume it's been that way for awhile. Even the FAST channels don't work anymore.

I checked that a few times recently and they had new movies listed but they all came up as “currently unavailable” when clicking on them. The only ones you could still rent were B-movies.

They have a few Redbox movie channels on my LG TV’s internet channels also, those were still there this week.

A comprehensive article about the last couple years of downfall of Redbox:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/5/24...bankruptcy-why

Though it doesn’t address the apparent criminality of the CEO who has a long history of fraud and self-dealing:
https://funnybusiness.substack.com/p...rational-brand

All Redbox services have been offline for 3 days. I heard that they lost their payments processor.

The fat lady has sung, and she was off-key.

(Don’t have a link, but it’s official.)