Cartridge Rental Network

Label used by Cartridge Rental Systems Inc., a company set up by Cartridge Television Inc., and that Columbia Pictures partnered into. This label represented the rental arm of the Cartrivision format and was the very first format that supplied home rental of feature length films. The scheme was set up so that one would order titles by mail order and once watched the customer would mail the movie back. The cartridges used for this were not able to be rewound by the consumer level Cartrivision consoles sold to the public, this meant the renter could only watch the movie once. The cartridges used for this program are differentiated by the ones sold for repeat viewing by the cartridge color, the Rental Network carts are red while the rest are black. The company/label was set up in 1972 shortly after the introduction of the Cartrivision format and had shut its doors by summer of 1973 when the plug was pulled on the format.