Interesting story over at Home Media Magazine. Apparently Dish (now owner of Blockbuster) has asked/demanded that the kiosk giant NCR stop using the Blockbuster brand on its kiosks. NCR up until now has used the Blockbuster brand on their kiosk to distribute DVDs and Blu-Ray in convenience, pharmacy and grocery locations across the nation. This will most likely result in NCR changing the name and undertaking an updated branding campaign for the new kiosk label – unless the two sides can come up with some sort of agreement.

Personally, I think the existing NCR kiosks are a lot better than Redbox’s kiosks. Redbox pioneered the DVD kiosks and I think NCR perfected it with their Blockbuster launch – equipped with eye-catching video, large library and easy navigation. That said, NCR kiosks have no where near the number of locations that Redbox has.

In regards to NCR – if they were to have a name change – I’m not sure how this would effect possible “first time users” to these kiosks with a new name not as recognizable as the “Blockbuster” brand. Conversely, I think existing NCR kiosk users will probably have no problem with the change so long as the kiosks don’t go anywhere.