> First things first: as far as I can tell, BBVs are franchised. I believe this because there are 3 (yes, three) Blockbusters in my city (oh, wait, there's three that I go to... there's actually at least four) and all of them seem to charge slightly different prices. The non-new releases vary from between $1-$2 for five days. And most of the non-new releases if you don't like they will give you another one for free. I like that. I tend to see what I want to in the theater and don't rent a lot of new stuff. BBV has a very wide selection of older titles, which is nice. And the fact that there are three of them (actually four) close to me means that if one of them doesn't have something, another probably will.

These complaints about video rental pricing are kind of surprising me - if only because every video store in my area charges four dollars a day. Yep - four dollars for one day. The video games are five dollars for three days. And there isn't a single Blockbuster to be seen within miles.