Movie Gallery fetes 'PowerPlay' customers
PHYSICAL: Four home-theater systems given away to millionth customers
By Danny King -- Video Business, 5/28/2009
MAY 28 | PHYSICAL: Movie Gallery, whose eponymous and Hollywood Video chains make it the No. 2 U.S. movie-rental store operator behind Blockbuster, has signed up more than 1 million customers for the subscription program it started less than three months ago and has given away four home-theater systems to customers who simultaneously qualified as the 1 millionth member.
Movie Gallery gave away $1,300 systems that included a 46-inch high-definition television to customers who signed up for its PowerPlay subscription program in Oregon, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Alberta, Canada, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The promotion commemorates what Movie Gallery called the least expensive movie and game rentals in the industry when it launched the program in March. Catalog titles, new releases, Blu-ray discs and videogame titles rent daily for $2, $3, $4 and $5, respectively.
The subscription plan is part of an effort to gain ground on both Blockbuster and Netflix, the largest U.S. movie-rental service via mail. Since emerging from bankruptcy last May, Movie Gallery has tried to cut costs and improve its financial performance by boosting exposure of the Hollywood Video brand while overhauling much of its leadership.
