Competition record
MGM
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
MGM is the historic studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, one of the Hollywood majors covered by the 1948 Paramount Decrees. The decrees answered block booking and studio ownership of theaters, and the library records the outcome as a remedy.
Overview
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was a Culver City studio with a roster of stars and a slate of pictures it released through the studio system. In that system the company that made the film also controlled how the film reached the screen. MGM sat inside that system with Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Fox.
Block booking meant an independent theater that wanted a hit had to take a package of other films with it. Theater ownership meant the studio's own houses could play the best films on the best terms. The 1948 Paramount Decrees are the remedy the library records: limits on those practices, aimed at separating exhibition from the studios' grip.
This profile is the historic studio in that decree case. It is the MGM of the studio system. The competitive stake is a town's movie screen, and who got to decide which film played there.
Competition footprint
Block booking tied access to a desirable film to a bundle of other titles the exhibitor did not choose one by one.
Studio-owned theaters were the first-run houses. Independent screens negotiated for what those houses did not take.
The library status is a remedy, the decrees, rather than a fine.
Consumer & business angle
A moviegoer in a one-theater town saw the film the booking system sent, at the time the system allowed.
An independent exhibitor's weekly program was a package negotiated with a studio that also owned competing screens.
What to watch
- How film-licensing histories still explain block booking with the MGM-era studio system.
- Later arguments about studio control of exhibition, which start from these decrees.
Markets
motion picture production · theatrical exhibition
Also known as: metro-goldwyn-mayer, metro goldwyn mayer