---
title: "Charting the Rise and Fall of Blockbuster in One Videographic"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/7acd8d13-ff8b-4154-ab3b-fec4f53c8e48
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/charting-the-rise-and-fall-of-blockbuster-in-one-videographic-2713389
category: "Retail"
industry: "Retail"
published: 2020-06-26T16:11:20.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:27:39.327Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/3f6f4cbc86fbbc9745cc5c53caf5b2872181.jpg
---

# Charting the Rise and Fall of Blockbuster in One Videographic

**TL;DR:** A videographic from V1 Analytics charts the rise and fall of Blockbuster, showing its massive expansion in the 80s and 90s and collapse in the 2000s. Today, only one franchisee-owned Blockbuster location remains, down from 5,734 units at its height.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2020-06-26. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/charting-the-rise-and-fall-of-blockbuster-in-one-videographic-2713389).*

## Story

**That second lesson is demonstrated elegantly in a videographic from V1 Analytics, which uses data from Blockbuster’s public financial reporting to show the franchise’s massive expansion throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s and its precipitous collapse in the second half of the 2000s.**

**Today, a single franchisee-owned Blockbuster location continues to operate in Portland — down from 5,734 units at the franchise’s height.**

**While the rise of Netflix is typically blamed for the death of the brick-and-mortar video-rental industry at large, it’s worth noting that Family Video, a relatively small competitor to Blockbuster in the ‘90s and ‘00s, is still operating more than 700 units, suggesting that Blockbuster’s demise cannot be attributed entirely to external factors.**

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- franchise expansion (topic)
- Retail (sector)
- Netflix (company)
- Portland (location)
- brick and mortar (topic)
- industry decline (topic)
- video rental (topic)

---
Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/charting-the-rise-and-fall-of-blockbuster-in-one-videographic-2713389). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/7acd8d13-ff8b-4154-ab3b-fec4f53c8e48).