The Film and Television Industry

The History and its Future

Jacque Lewis

Business of Entertainment

Joseph Richie

5.10.14

The TV and Film industry generates 16.7 Billion in public revenue (mpaa.org). It’s

amazing through all these years with the number of distractions present that the industry is still in

great shape. The competition for the audience’s time and wallets is stronger than ever. Even

though the TV and Film industries work together they’re technically still in competition with

each other as well. The film industry in particular is not without its problems with over twenty

box office bombs last year featuring the stars of Hollywood (Business Insider). There’s also the

threat, or at least the potential threat of TV and Film piracy currently present. Then finally

there’s the internet, tablets, the beast of the videogame industry fighting for the people’s time

and money.

This paper isn’t necessary about the competition of the industry, but rather the Television

and Film industries itself. Both industries are similar yet entirely different in a lot of ways. This

paper will discuss the history of both industries and compare and contrast the two. We’ll finally

take a look at the future of both industries and discuss the possibility of either industry even

existing in the future. The worst case scenario would be both industries consolidating completely

like the music industry we once knew and loved. So let’s start exploring the industries we all

gravitate to on a daily basis.

We’ll first start by taking a look at the Film industry and its beginnings, especially since

technically the medium of film was invented first. Since the film industry’s history is so long and

rich with beginnings as early as the late 1800’s, not mention the invention of photography, which

dates back to the late 1700’s on its own. It’s easier to just cover the basics, which started with a

British photographer named Eadweard Muybridge who took the first pictures of people and

animals in motion. Let’s then zoom to the 1900’s which gives us the studios still open in

Hollywood today. In 1912, Universal Pictures opened up becoming one of the first major studios

in Hollywood. Over the years, the studios of Fox, Warner Brothers, and MGM, which was

formed out of a merger were opened (digitalhistory.uh.edu). Now, there’s currently six major

studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios, NBCUniversal,

Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group and Paramount Motion Pictures Group. There’s also

studios called Mini-majors such as Lions gate Entertainment, AMC Theatres, and of course as

mentioned earlier Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Interesting enough, these same companies also

produced for television, which we’ll now jump into a very brief history of.

There’s one man who should take the bulk of the credit for the invention of the

Television, his name is Philo T. Farnsworth. After years of experimenting the first television was

demonstrated on September 7, 1927 (nyu.edu). Though, the Television as we know it today was

invented and approved by the FCC by RCA in 1953 (RCA.com). We won’t bother going in the

long legal battle between Farnsworth and RCA for the original patents. Today, RCA has major

competition with LG and Samsung being major contenders for the wallets of consumers, but this

isn’t a discussion about the invention of television but more so the industry itself.

Today there are an average of 189 channels in today’s U.S. household, but Americans

only watch an average of 17.5 of them (Nielsen). This means that it’s harder to capture

Americans attention with so much happening around them. This puts even more pressure on the

networks who puts even more pressure on producers to deliver the hits. During the week of May

9th 2014 the networks cancelled 23 shows, mainly due to low ratings (Entertainment Weekly).

Ratings are the final determining factor of rather a show survives for possibility another year or

is taken off the air completely. The pressure of the movie business isn’t any different, though the

success of a film is based on how many people paid to see it every day. A movie star with a

couple of box office bombs under his belt can definitely stall his or her career. It’s a problem

Johnny Depp seems to be going through with his latest film, Transcendence, failing to meet

projections (Forbes). His past two films, The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows were successful

but barely successful (Forbes). The movie star and television star could very well no longer be

draw it could be when it comes to entertaining the masses. A couple of the twenty-three shows

cancelled by the networks featured very well established stars like Robin Williams.

So if the stars of Hollywood fails at capturing the attention of America, who will? Where

did the audience go? Are they now on YouTube, which has over a billion subscribers and

counting (ExpandedRamblings.com)? Are they on Netflix which has a total of 44 million

subscribers and counting (Time Magazine)? Are they now on Hulu Plus, which has over six

million subscribers (Hulu.com)? The fact is, the “missing audience” isn’t necessary missing at

all, it’s just moved on to bigger and better technology that doesn’t involved the television. Well it

does involve television, just not where Neilson reports it. In fact, it’s been reported that 70

percent of households today put in use DVR’s, Netflix, or On Demand (Leichtman Research

Group).

This leads us to the future of entertainment, which is the “On Demand” Era. In fact, one

could possibility say we’re already there. Other than live programming, it’s starting to no longer

become beneficial to sit home and watch television, though VCR’s already changed this years

ago, never was it possible to record the program and still see it in the same quality that it

originally aired. Though, this also means that studios will began to slash production costs to

compensate for the smaller slots for advertising, causing the television Industry to become

condensed in a lot of ways. This will make room for more independent producers to take a stab

at grabbing the same type of audiences that they were shut out of before. Why does this scenario

feel familiar? Because this is what essentially happen to the music industry after Napster hit. In

the near future prepare for more consolidation as the television and film industries began to

prepare for layoffs to create a leaner, meaner entertainment machine.

This paper was quite the ride, we took a brief look at the history of the television industry

and the film industry. There was discussion of the failures both industries has had as of yet. Then

we discuss why these industries were having trouble gaining audiences. Finally we took a look at

future of the film and television industry which would, not surprisingly, began to mirror the

music industry becoming smaller due to technology.

This unfortunately means, there will be less jobs out there, though it also means, there

will be more entrepreneurs out there taking the entertainment industry as a whole to the next

level. The “dinosaurs” will have to adapt to keep up, if not, it could possibly mean their company

shutting down. Prepare for a push towards entertainment on more technological devices as the

industry prepares for a major consolidation.

Works Cited

“Changing Channels: Americans view just 17 Channels despite Record Number to choose from.”

Nielsen. 06 May 2014. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2014/changing-channels-americans-view-just-17-

channels-despite-record-number-to-choose-from.html>

“Chronology of Film History.” DigitalHistory.uh.edu. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/film_chron.cfm#motion>

“DVRs leveling off at about half of all TV Households.” Leichtman Research Group. 6

December 2013. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/120613release.html>

Mpaa.org. Web. 11 May 2014.

“The RCA Story.” RCA.com. Web. 11 May 2014. < http://www.rca.com/about/the-rca-story/>

Hibberd, James. “Broadcast Ax: Networks cancel 23 shows this week.” Entertainment Weekly.

09 May 2014. Web. 11 May 2014. < http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/05/09/broadcast-ax-canceled-

shows/>

Hopkins, Mike. “Today at the Hulu Upfront.” Hulu.com. 30 April 2014. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://blog.hulu.com/>

Luckerson, Victor. “Netflix Mulls Price Tiering as Subscriber Numbers Soar.” Time Magazine.

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subscribers-grows-greatly-in-q4/>

Landen, Hal. “The Birth of Television.” Video University. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.videouniversity.com/articles/the-birth-of-television/>

Mendelson, Scott. “Johnny Depp’s Transcendence’ is a No-Fault Box Office Bomb.” Forbes. 21

April 2014. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/04/21/johnny-depps-transcendence-is-a-no-

fault-box-office-bomb/>

Pomerantz, Dorothy. “The Johnny Depp Problem.” Forbes. 18 April 2014. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2014/04/18/the-johnny-depp-problem/>

Stephens, Mitchell. “History of Television.” NYU.edu. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/History%20of%20Television%20page.htm>

Smith, Craig. “By the Numbers: 36 Amazing Youtube Statistics.” Expanded Ramblings. 23 April

2014. Web. 11 May 2014. <

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/youtube-statistics/#.U3BQufldV8E>

Strauss, Karsten. “TV and Film Piracy: Threatening an Industry?” Forbes. 06 March 2014. Web.

11 May 2014. < http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/03/06/tv-and-film-piracy-

threatening-an-industry/>