Co-chief executive Ted Sarandos has announced that Netflix will bring an end to its DVD rental service later this year. The company had been sending mail-order DVDs for 25 years but has made the decision to stop the service due to struggling growth. The final DVDs will be sent out on 29th September later this year.
Sarandas shared a blog post entitled ‘Netflix DVD – The Final Season’ in which he praised the company’s “iconic red envelopes” and their role in “paving the way” for the success of online streaming that Netflix is now mostly known for.
“After an incredible 25-year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year,” Sarandos wrote. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the business continues to shrink, that’s going to become increasingly difficult. So we want to go out on a high and will be shipping our final discs on September 29th, 2023.”
He added, “Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home – and they paved the way for the shift to streaming. We feel so privileged to have been able to share movie nights with our DVD members for so long; so proud of what our employees have achieved and excited to continue pleasing entertainment fans for many more decades to come. To everyone who ever added a DVD to their queue or waited by the mailbox for a red envelope to arrive: thank you.”
