There is no shortage of news lately in changes to home/personal media access. Jon Gambrell of the Associated Press reports that Wal-Mart is shutting down its own online movie and television show download service.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed an online movie download service it launched less than a year ago.
The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company’s 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world’s largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc.
So Netflix continues to gain momentum.
Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.
There are still plenty of options.
Wal-Mart’s departure leaves Apple’s iTunes store and Amazon.com Inc.’s Unbox service among the options for movie downloads, which haven’t garnered as much consumer interest as online music sales. Last month, Time Warner Inc.’s AOL also scrapped its pay-for-download movie service.
Meanwhile, Apple plans online film rentals. Twentieth Century Fox is expected to announce an agreement with Apple.