The Studio System and Conglomerate Hollywood Analysis - Essay Example

Through the Music Corporation of America, the film industry took a high recovery path between 1970 and 1980, through the integration of the television and the film division of the MCA with new blockbuster films. This was to be reversed back to the studio system balance of power, after the deregulation of the media that swept through the 1990s, coupled with globalization and digital technologies (Schatz, n.d.). Between the 1920s and the 1940s, the film industry was controlled by the Big Eight Studios, which operated on a factory-based mode, and the studio control made the industry flourish through the depression and World War II, such that the government had to tolerate the studio control.

However, by 1947-8, the studio control experienced one of its major blows that saw the revenues drop drastically. This is because, the Supreme Court ruled to prohibit the collusive trade practices that enabled the big studios to control the industry (Schatz, n.d.). This resulted in the change of the mode of operation of the film business in Hollywood, to a new business model that operates to date.

The ‘telefilm’ concept developed in the 1950s, with the rise of the profitable television production based on the West Coast films, which the studios started pursuing (Schatz, n.d.). Though initially, the big studios such as Warner Bros and the 20th Century Fox had resisted the ‘telefilm’ lure, they were eventually absorbed into it by the success of other studios, and by the 1960s, the TV series production had shifted from New York to Hollywood. Further, the 1960s were the years of increased film importation and international co-production, and during the same period, Hollywood ventured into regenerating its art cinema (Schatz, n.d.).

However, the excess youth-marketed art cinema coupled with the flop of the high budget film resulted in a high recession for the industry between 1969 and 1971. This led to the revolution of the industry through the introduction of theatrical releases and multiple sequels, in addition to the merchandising and licensing campaigns of the videogames and theme parks, which saw the rise of the new Hollywood (Schatz, n.d.). The Hollywood economic recovery proceeded through the 1980s and the number of movies produced had increased by roughly 50%, from the initial 14,000 movie screen productions to 22,000 (Schatz, n.d.).

Further, talent compensation was increasingly rising, and the new talents were never held contractually to a single studio. During the same period, the studios also moved into a synergy of multifaceted media corporations, to cash on the new revenue streams in the entertainment industry. This, however, was not to last, since globalization, digitization, and deregulation of the media industry saw the synergy of the studios quickly transformed into a conglomerate of major studios, to form media giants that have henceforth taken control of the US film and television industry (Schatz, n.d.).

Thus, the transformation of the mode of operation of the US film and television industry into how it operates today has undergone different transformative stages, to reach the current equilibrium, where conglomerates and franchisees run the industry.