HMV - Five Reasons You'll Miss It

It has been just over a week since the physical home entertainment stalwart, HMV, called in the administrators putting 2200 jobs and 125 stores at risk in the wake of a ‘tsunami’ of retail challenges. 

Here’s hoping someone, Amazon maybe, steps in and salvages a much-loved brand that was in touching distance of reaching its centenary year on the high street. 

As someone who has invested over 25 years working for, selling in and shopping at HMV the prospect of a retail landscape without them fills me with dread. 

But the biggest shock is how they have managed to survive as long as they did.  

Pummelled by the grocers, clobbered by Amazon and finally cut down by the streaming giants, it can’t be a surprise to any studio brokering these deals that their days were numbered.

The huge advances in digital technology have even made legitimate instant access and binge watching easy and inexpensive and the need to wait, anticipate, invest and cherish all but redundant.

Quite ironic that the week HMV went into administration Netflix, its streaming nemesis, released a DTV that was watched 45 million times, making it the biggest release of all time, yet even now I’m struggling to recall its name.  

Accounting for just over 30% of the physical visual home entertainment market why will we miss HMV?

Range...

Anybody who knows anything about film will quickly realise the yawning chasms that define all the streaming platforms and grocers. Fancy a Francis Ford Coppola retrospective and you will be hard pushed to find The Godfather Trilogy. Seeking Apocalypse Now, Rumble Fish, The Outsiders or One From The Heart and you will be disappointed. For the time being you can purchase physical copies from an indifferent Amazon but without HMV’s churn for how much longer?  

Campaigns...

Time and again HMV stepped in and saved many a label and studio’s bacon with industry-defining campaigns that salvaged under-performing titles and cleared through pallet loads of deep catalogue lines. Merchandised within an inch of its life, the casual shopper could browse HMV's aisles and discover bargains and make connections that scrolling online can never replicate. Listed beyond page 3 and you may as well not be listed.  

Exclusives...

Everyone has a favourite. I love Jaws and have bought it in every format and every incarnation going. When HMV presented the VHS range the bonkers genius flagged up what really set them apart. HMV have consistently taken risks because they know their customers. They know we know the film inside out. The film isn’t in contention. It’s that slight tweak that makes you buy it all over again. Will anyone fill that void quite as well?    

Discerning…

Tastes vary but part of the appeal of HMV was an unspoken understanding of great films. The bona fide classics that continue to trigger emotions, change lives and shape identities. With HMV you could guarantee that even the smallest store would stock West Side Story, The Shawshank Redemption, On The Waterfront and a hundred other gems. There’s a withering disbelief when I now scroll through Netflix and Prime and see Schindler’s List nestling alongside Hart’s War and Tunnel Rats as if their currency was somehow equal. 

Edgy...   

HMV supported countless new releases on a weekly basis and consistently took risks and championed products they believed in. They rarely got hoodwinked. Nine times out of ten they got it right because a decision was made by entertainment literate people who cared about the products they were buying, the stores they were representing and the end consumers they were selling to. While I am certain people in the industry still care about film and music, my biggest fear is that platform support will be regulated by a set of criteria that won’t necessarily factor in if the product is good or not.

If HMV goes then every studio must realise that physical home entertainment won’t be far behind.  Smart boutique labels may be able to cherry pick abandoned studio catalogues and bring re-issued gems to the market but without a bricks and mortar platform how will these films get showcased and ever achieve the standout HMV uniquely provided?