ABSTRACT
There were two major challenges to network sovereignty in the early television industry in the United States the first from broadcasting’s economic rivals in Hollywood and the second from philosophical nay-sayers and would-be reformers in the public realm. Contrary to some subsequent historical accounts, the Hollywood studios did not ignore television or limit their responses to CinemaScope, 3-D movies, and other theatrical
gimmicks. For example, a single major studio, Paramount, had interests in four of the nation’s first nine TV stations in 1947, as well as stakes in significant television patents and in the DuMont television network. However, Paramount and the other major studios were also involved in a decade-long losing battle with the U.S. Department of justice over their distribution practices and ownership of movie theatres; they also faced a steep drop in the post-war theatrical box office unrelated to television, disruptions in post-war foreign markets, and an internecine political blacklists. The efforts of the studios to build a major presence in TV station ownership and network operation were consistently thwarted by the hostile actions of the FCC. Their efforts to develop an alternative to broadcast television in the form of large-screen TV in movie theatres were frustrated by FCC refusals of broadcast frequency allocations and coaxial cable rate regulation reform, as well as by public indifference and the costs of theatre renovation. Despite many ambitious Hollywood announcements of prospective theatre-TV plans between 1948 and 1951, fewer than 100 theatres across the country were ever equipped for its use, and theatre television dwindled into a series of infrequent and ad hoc offerings of prize fights and business conferences.
