Redbox increasing DVD rental prices by 25 percent to help offset format's shrinking audience

Redbox is raising its DVD rental prices by 25 percent beginning next week in an effort to wring more revenue from the shrinking audience that still watches movies on the discs instead of Internet video services such as Netflix.

The increase announced Monday means the price to check out a DVD from one of Redbox's nearly 44,000 in-store kiosks will climb from $1.20 per day to $1.50 effective Dec. 2. Redbox's Blu-Ray rental rates are increasing even more dramatically, jumping 33 percent from $1.50 per day to $2.

Video game lovers will be even harder hit beginning Jan. 6. That's when Redbox will begin charging $3 per day to rent video games, a 50 percent increase from the current $2.

Redbox last raised its DVD prices three years ago.