The fibn studios are continuing to trim sta s as they liquidate inventories
estimated at $400,000,000. MCA (which owns Universal) and
20th [Fox] hit new lows on the New York Stock Exchange. Universal
has pink-slipped a number of senior executives and writers.... MGM
has trimmed about 29 percent of its personnel and is expected to
extend pink slips to another 25 percent.... At %Varners the process
will be extended over the next three or four months with new dismissal
notices before the year end.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, NOVEMBER 1969
From about 1955 to 1970, as the effects of the consent decrees were gradually absorbed, the order of magnitude among the Hollywood studios changed. The minors of the studio era-Universal, Columbia, and United Artists-were able to become majors as the leverage of market control shifted from exhibition to distribution. The majors shrank by divesting their theater chains, and one-RKO, always the weakest of the lot-disappeared, leaving MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., and 20th Century-Fox to compete with the former minors for market share. Without the stability provided by vertical integration, production came to exist on a film-by-fibn basis rather than as part of a rationalized institutional schedule, and many studios experienced a decline in long-term revenue as annual profits depended more and more on the success of individual films.
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