The statement from the Time-Warner CFO that the studio was ìaggressivelyî transitioning away from packaged media is just the latest indication that the future of electronic delivery of movies is pretty much upon us. Sales of dvds and blu ray have been falling for years. Now fueled by a recession that seems to have no end, that drop has become a plummet. Distributors of finished goods scramble to compensate for the reduced revenue per title by releasing ever more filmsóan approach that exhausts consumers and inevitably waters down the quality of new releases with too many mediocre films. The other trend that drives current release strategy is the obsession with cast driven product; as if ìBî grade actors never make a bad film. What these trends have given us is a cluttered market full of mediocre and even bad films with very little room for innovation and creativity. The only growth area for packaged media is kiosks like Redbox. Unfortunately the wholesale price these new outlets are willing to pay is so low, and their shelf/inventory space so limited, that they donít come close to making up for all the revenue lost in other areas of home entertainment. They do however offer the average consumer the cheapest method to legally watch a movie; albeit usually a very predictable one. Bland selection or not, this price advantage and the ongoing recession mean that these kiosks are going to be with us for some time to come, whether the studios and other big dvd distributors like them or not.