McDonald's Corp. this week announced plans to install "automated entertainment machines" (AEMs), owned and operated by Silcon Valley-based
DVDPlay, at 105 of its Denver-area fast-food outlets over the next month.
Each
AEM will initially offer 30 to 40 popular titles for a rental fee of $1/day. (The machines can hold up to 350 titles.) No membership fee is required; customers use their credit cards to rent a DVD, which they can keep for as long as they want without paying late fees. DVDs must be returned to participating McDonald's stores. New DVDs will be added to the vending machines each week.
McDonald's has been
testing the DVD rental service since January 2003 at outlets in both the D.C. area and in Las Vegas. Called TikTok DVD Shops, the machines used in these initial tests-runs were created by Hettie Herzog, president and owner of Automated Distribution Technologies in Exton, Pa., now owned by McDonald's.
Unlike the Denver AEMs, the TikTok Shops, which charged .99 to $1.50 per day for DVD rentals, as well as late fees, were
installed in parking lots rather than inside the restaurant. In Denver, DVDs will be available for rent at Redbox kiosks situated both inside and outside restaurants.
According to the
Washington Post, "In the past, similar vending machine concepts have proved risky. Peter Folger, president of
Vending Intelligence in Sherman Oaks, Calif., built a machine that sold compact discs in 1992 and placed them around Los Angeles, but he took the machines off the streets two years later because sales were too slow."
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 5/25/2004 12:59:00 PM
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