Video Store Magazine Renamed Home Media Retailing

Posted on January 21, 2005

With a nod toward convergence and the growing digital nature of home entertainment, Video Store Magazine is changing its name to Home Media Retailing. The change, which debuted with the Jan. 16, 2005 issue, coincides with a major redesign that comes on the heels of the weekly magazine's 25th anniversary. Hive4media.com, Video Store Magazine's online business site, will similarly change its name to homemediaretailing.com.

"The new realities of the digital entertainment era in packaged media and other developing delivery systems have changed the way we look at the business," said Don Rosenberg, Home Media Retailing's publisher. "Movies, music and video games are all being brought into the home in digital form, and the PC and consumer electronics industries are coming together to create convergent home media centers. We are no longer a nation of video rental stores, but rather a nation of media retailers that carry a full line of home entertainment."

Mass merchants have expanded their home entertainment departments. The big electronics chains carry home entertainment hardware as well as software. Music stores have as many DVDs and games as they do CDs. Online cyber-sellers -- and cyber-renters -- are shipping huge quantities of DVDs, CDs and video games into homes around the world. And grocers, drugstores, convenience stores, and even toy and sporting goods stores are integrating home entertainment into their mix.

"Our new name simply reflects what we already are," Rosenberg said. "As Home Media Retailing, we will continue to focus on packaged media in home video. We will continue to cover music, DVD and video games. We will stay on top of next-generation formats and technologies, and also increase our coverage and research into new digital forms of delivery to help our readers, as well as our advertisers, chart their future."