Blockbuster, the former video rental giant, will get much leaner in the coming months as it plans to shutter 300 stores in the United States and shed 3,000 employees, parent company Dish Network announced Monday night.
Locally, Blockbuster has just one store left in San Mateo County at the Sequoia Station on El Camino Real in Redwood City.
Last year, Blockbuster closed 500 stores across the nation including locally in Belmont, downtown San Mateo and South San Francisco.
Dish Network officials would not say which stores would close but employees were given notice Friday.
The manager at the Redwood City store did not indicate whether the store is slated for closure and referred questions from the Daily Journal to a corporate office, which did not respond.
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The company will continue to operate about 500 stores in the United States. Some stores will close as their leases end, while others are being closed for under-performing, according to Dish Network.
The company has suffered stiff competition from Redbox and Netflix in recent years and has moved toward renting videos through digital streaming and Blockbuster Express kiosks.
The number of Blockbuster stores nationwide will drop to about 500 this year, down from a peak of 4,000 stores in the mid-1990s.
The company went bankrupt in 2010 and was bought by Dish Network in an auction for about $233 million.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
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PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
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