To paraphrase 20th Century-Fox producer Jerry Wald, Hollywood's real problem in the 1960s was not so much "runaway production" as it was the "runaway audience."1 A high point for movie attendance in the United States was reached in 1946 when an average of 90 million admissions to movie theaters were recorded weekly,2 constituting a record 75 percent of the estimated "potential audience" nationwide.3 During the next ten years, however, average weekly attendance dropped rapidly: 1956 figures set weekly movie theater audience figures at 46 million;4 four years later, in 1960, that figure was 40 million; attendance plummeted to 20 million by 1970.5
The steadily shrinking movie theater audience in the United States was caused by the impact of television accompanied by changing demographics and lifestyles. A few media historians, such as Douglas Gomery, correctly argue that "the rapid innovation of over-the-air television took place... after the initiation of the decline in attendance at notion picture theaters."6 The claim is statistically correct, but it is misleading. Movie theater attendance began to decline from its 1946 peak before television became widely available in the United States. Nonetheless, television was a primary cause of the subsequent decline in film attendance.
