Your Local Video Shop
Computer Shopper|January 2018

The rise and fall of the home video rental market

Your Local Video Shop

ONCE UPON A time, we didn’t have Sky on demand, or Netflix, or Amazon Prime to find a film to watch. We had to go down to the video shop and see if the film we wanted was in.

It was in the late 1980s that video tapes of the VHS variety started to pop up in petrol stations, off licences and newsagents. With their often loud and beguiling cover images, the tapes quickly became one of the most popular ways – other than going to the cinema or a Punch and Judy show – to escape from everyday life and see something exciting.

Video tapes were rented in both VHS and Betamax formats while the format wars ran their course. Soon there were dedicated video stores in towns up and down the UK, with aisles and aisles of rental opportunities. Local libraries even expanded their loan offerings to add video tapes as well as books.

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