mail order

If you stick two bricks together, they still won't float. With that in mind, it is probably a good thing that Blockbuster pulled out of its $1.3bn deal to buy American electronics retailer Circuit City last week.

Now the company that once led the world in video and DVD rentals must contend with the realisation that it has become, in business terms, a brick, with all the associated buoyancy problems.

First came mail-order rental services, now film downloads at the click of a button. DVD rental and retail stores are braced for a fresh onslaught of competition, this time in disc-less form.

The DVD is only 10 years old and yet the doom merchants are predicting it could join the likes of VHS tapes - vanishing from high-street stores and household shelves.

With reports that Apple is poised to launch full-length film downloads in Britain and other companies offering their own video-on-demand services, even DVD industry insiders admit the format may eventually die out.