Investopedia: Coinstar - Maybe Not As Doomed As You Think

The doomsayers will be out in force on Coinstar (Nasdaq:CSTR) over the next few days. The company announced a significant miss for the fourth quarter, took down guidance for 2011 by a significant amount and acknowledged troubles with both inventory management and their assessment of the market. 

Queue the write-ups of "Coinstar is doomed!"

But maybe that is too hasty. Coinstar has problems, yes, and a difficult transition to come, but it may be a bit premature to grab the shovels and reserve a hearse.

Studios Sink Coinstar's Holiday
As Coinstar's management tells the tale, the underperformance in the fourth quarter can be laid at least in part at the feet of movie studios belonging to the likes of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and News Corp (NYSE:NWS).

Desirous of preserving their ridiculously profitable video-on-demand/pay-per-view and DVD sales, these studios basically forced Coinstar into accepting a 28-day window of exclusion; Coinstar cannot load its Redbox DVD rental kiosks with these new releases for 28 days. Given that the Redbox business model is predicated at least in part on impulse rentals of new movies, that's a serious blow, and that fed into the lower-than-expected same-store sales of 12.5% for the period.   

Please click below for the full story:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Coinstar--Maybe-Not-As-Doomed-As-You-Think-CSTR-NFLX-AAPL-AMZN-GME-TWX-NCR0117.aspx