Block system

The block system in film distribution was a system in which large film distributors to cinemas compelled to play their entire annual program of films. This is where the term blind booking comes from , as the cinema operators could not know which films they had to play during the year. The block system was one of the methods with which the American film industry wanted to secure this for the long term after conquering the European film market .

The advantage for the distributor was that he could be sure of the sales of his films and thus his market share. This dubious business practice was banned by European states in the mid-1920s as part of their contingent laws to protect their film industry.

functionality

The distributor concludes a contract with the cinema owner in which the latter agrees to receive an entire annual program of films from the distributor. The distributor in turn guarantees to deliver the desired number of films - one per week or more or less, depending on the contract - on time, including all "box office hits", ie blockbusters like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments . The cinema owner agrees, since the distributor threatens not to deliver any films or at least no blockbusters to him. This leverage was successful when the distributor was known for regular blockbusters. Since these were the main streams of audiences for a cinema operator, he could not afford to do without such films, especially if other cinemas were showing these films. Due to the lost customer loyalty , the effects would also be felt in the rest of the cinema's film program.

With the block system, the cinema owner received an annual program from a film distributor - mostly from an American film company - without having to examine the films beforehand and decide whether to show them.

history

“Block booking” was first introduced in 1910 by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) in the USA . The MPPC, based on the East Coast in the New York area , was declared illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1915 . The business practices introduced by her, however, were adopted by the "independent" film companies established in Hollywood at the time.

Dissemination and application

During the First World War , which frequently hindered Europe, which had dominated the film industry worldwide, a competitive film industry emerged in the USA. This pushed to Europe after the end of the war and already introduced tried and tested business practices such as block booking on the home market. This was widespread in Europe in the early 1920s. It was used by the large American film groups, which were producers , distributors and operators of many large cinemas at the same time, in order to secure their hegemony on the European film market, which they quickly gained from the early 1920s, for themselves. The advantage for them was that in this way even less popular films could be brought into European cinemas, so that a certain minimum turnover in Europe could always be calculated. In addition to the leverage of “blockbuster refusal”, lower prices were used as a lure when an entire annual film program was purchased.

Prohibition

Since the block system made it even more difficult for the already ailing European film industry (see silent film history ) to assert itself against the American film industry, the European states quickly became aware of this dubious business practice and gradually banned it.

In Germany, the block system was banned with the introduction of the contingent law in the early 1920s. Great Britain followed suit with its ban in the summer of 1927 under the Cinematographic Film Act (" Quotabill ").

literature

L'Estrange Fawcett: The World of Film. Amalthea-Verlag, Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna 1928 (translated by C. Zell, supplemented by S. Walter Fischer) pp. 136–137
Roberta Pearson: The Cinema of Transition. In: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (Ed.): History of the international film. Special paperback edition, Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-476-02164-5 , pp. 27–28