The owner of the UK's longest surviving DVD rental store is surprised that business is thriving - 40 years after they opened.
Colin Richards, 71, opened TVL Allstar Video in Haverhill, Suffolk, UK in 1984 and it originally started as a company that leased video tapes to other shops.
He then decided to start renting films and the store now has around 8,500 DVDs including Forrest Gump - which has been borrowed at least 2,000 times.
Colin Richards, 71, opened TVL Allstar Video in Haverhill, Suffolk, UK in 1984 and it originally started as a company that leased video tapes to other shops.
He then decided to start renting films and the store now has around 8,500 DVDs including Forrest Gump - which has been borrowed at least 2,000 times.
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FunTranscript
00:00I'm Colin Richards and this is TVO All-Star Video.
00:07We started TVO All-Star Video in the early 80s and at that time we expected to be around
00:14for about 5, 6 years.
00:18But here we are 40 years later and we're still going strong and we still have video rental.
00:25We're in the same format, obviously when we started it was VHS and Betamax, that all changed
00:31and we're now on DVD and Blu-ray and we have loads of popular titles, our most popular
00:38Christmas titles, obviously this time of year people are looking for Christmas entertainment.
00:43Over the years there's been a load of bestsellers.
00:47You can see by some of these covers that horror is predominantly a very, very popular genre.
00:58Here's just a small sample of some of the things that I've picked out which are notable
01:04bestsellers.
01:06Poltergeist, great movie, everyone can remember watching Poltergeist.
01:13Then we come on to Scream, instantly recognisable, very, very popular and it continues to be
01:20popular to this day.
01:22Indecent Proposal, now some may think is that really a top title but believe it or not it's
01:29a very popular title.
01:34Point Break, it was tremendously well received on rental and done very, very well indeed.
01:44And last but not least, Last Boy Scout, Bruce Willis at his best.
01:49One thing that has affected our business obviously is the number of streaming services and whilst
01:55that was a problem initially, the situations evolving now where there is such a big choice
02:01of different streaming services all requiring subscriptions where people saying I've had
02:09enough of that and they're suddenly coming back into the store having not been in for
02:15years and years and years and is our membership still valid?
02:20And every single member who's ever joined our club is still a valid member.
02:25We have signed up 18,621 members.
02:31That is perhaps one person for every household in Haverhill.
02:36So that's not bad game.