Yesterday I got a really good chuckle. It seems as if Blockbuster is finally getting its dues. Blockbuster has always been the bane of the video industry, destroying independent video stores by the thousands, wreaking havoc on the infrastructure of home video distribution and pricing, screwing people out of their money with misleading and cheating business practices. In short, the company that former Taco Bell employee John Antioco created was never up to any good.
After years of muscling their way into the market and arm-wrestling their competition into oblivion Blockbuster had to take a few punches lately. First their borderline-fraudulent 'No More Late-Fees' campaign got under scrutiny by General Attorneys across the country, then they had to bow out of their plan of a hostile take-over of their main competitor Hollywood Video. The thing that made me laugh, however, was yesterday's announcement that corporate raider Carl Icahn announced plans for a hostile take-over of Blockbuster unless the board of directors agrees to certain terms that he dictates.
Now, I do not think that Icahn's plans are nay better than Blockbuster's strategies and practices, but I find it funny that Antioco may eventually have to go back to his tacos after all. And that is something many people in the industry would greet with a lot of applause. I guess the saying still holds true, What goes around, comes around - even for a corporate shark like John Antioco.
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