LoveFilm

Europe's Netflix by post: DVDs in red envelopes, bought by Amazon and closed disc by disc

Shut down
19902026

LoveFilm was a British DVD-rental-by-post and later streaming service, formed from Online Rentals (DVDsOnTap, launched May 2002), Video Island and ScreenSelect, which merged in 2006 under the LoveFilm name and expanded to Germany and Scandinavia. Amazon took a stake in 2008 and bought the company in January 2011 for about £200 million, rebranded the streaming service Amazon Prime Instant Video in February 2014 and closed LoveFilm By Post on 31 October 2017.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2002
  2. May 2002 Launch
    DVDsOnTap starts renting DVDs by post

    Harlow, Essex; renamed LoveFilm in 2003.

  3. 2006
  4. April 2006 merger
    LoveFilm, Video Island and ScreenSelect merge

    One company under Simon Calver.

  5. 2008
  6. 5 February 2008 other
    Amazon swaps its DVD rental arm for a stake

    About a third of LoveFilm.

  7. 2011
  8. 20 January 2011 Acquisition
    Amazon agrees to buy LoveFilm

    Around £200 million.

  9. 2014
  10. 26 February 2014 Rebrand
    LoveFilm Instant becomes Amazon Prime Instant Video

    Only the disc business keeps the name.

  11. 2017
  12. 14 August 2017 Shutdown announced
    LoveFilm By Post to close

    "Decreasing demand for DVD and Blu-ray rental".

  13. 31 October 2017 Shutdown
    LoveFilm By Post closes

    The last of the red envelopes.

The site through time

Browse lovefilm.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Online Rentals Ltd (LoveFilm) 2002–2011 Founded Merged with Video Island and ScreenSelect in 2006; Amazon held about a third from 2008
Amazon 2011–2017 Acquisition About £200 million; streaming folded into Prime Instant Video in 2014

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Amazon, which had owned LoveFilm outright since 2011, folded its streaming side into Prime Instant Video on 26 February 2014 and on 14 August 2017 told members that LoveFilm By Post, the DVD and Blu-ray rental service that was all that remained of the brand, would close on 31 October 2017 because of "decreasing demand for DVD and Blu-ray rental" as customers moved to streaming.

Our analysis: LoveFilm was Netflix a few years behind and in a smaller market: it consolidated Britain's DVD-by-post start-ups into one, expanded across northern Europe, added streaming, and then sold itself to the company that would use it as a stepping stone. Amazon wanted the subscribers, the studio deals and the UK foothold, and had no reason to keep a second brand once Prime Video existed. The disc business lasted three years longer than the name because a few hundred thousand people still liked getting films in the post.

History [edit]

Red envelopes

DVDsOnTap started in Harlow in May 2002, three years after Netflix, renting DVDs by post for a monthly fee, and was rebranded LoveFilm after Arts Alliance invested in 2003. It was one of several: Video Island (Saul Klein) and ScreenSelect (William Reeve and Alex Chesterman) launched in London in 2003, and the three spent the next years buying each other and everyone else, including Amazon's German rental business and Boxman. By April 2006 they had merged into one company under Simon Calver, keeping the LoveFilm name and Chesterman and Klein's ScreenSelect technology, and by 2008 it had over a million members, a warehouse network in Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark and a catalogue of 70,000 titles.

In February 2008 Amazon sold its own European DVD rental service to LoveFilm in exchange for about a third of the company. LoveFilm added streaming (Watch Online, later LoveFilm Instant) to PCs, then to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and smart TVs, and signed the studio deals to feed it. On 20 January 2011 Amazon agreed to buy the rest, valuing the company at around £200 million; the deal closed that spring and LoveFilm became the base of Amazon's video business in Europe.

Absorbed

Under Amazon the brand was slowly dismantled. The Scandinavian operations closed in June 2013 and Germany's streaming moved to Amazon in 2014. On 26 February 2014 LoveFilm Instant in the UK became Amazon Prime Instant Video and the LoveFilm name was left only on the disc business, LoveFilm By Post. That carried on for three more years for the people who wanted new releases the streaming catalogue did not have, and on 14 August 2017 Amazon told them it would end on 31 October 2017. The red envelopes stopped; the studio relationships and the subscribers had long since become Prime Video.

The domain today

lovefilm.com no longer resolves; for years it redirected to Amazon Prime Video.

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Sources [edit]

  1. Amazon acquires LoveFilm, the Netflix of Europe TechCrunch 20 January 2011 [archived]
  2. If Amazon got LoveFilm at a $312m valuation, who is buying the drinks tonight? TechCrunch 20 January 2011 [archived]
  3. Amazon's LoveFilm pulls its subscription DVD and streaming service out of Scandinavia TechCrunch 10 June 2013 [archived]
  4. Amazon takes on Netflix with rebrand of LoveFilm video-on-demand service The Guardian 21 February 2014
  5. Lovefilm By Post DVD rental service to close BBC News 14 August 2017 [archived]
  6. Amazon to shutter Lovefilm rental service Deadline 14 August 2017 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).