I literally spent the last twenty minutes laying in bed (not sleeping) and trying to remember the third component of vertical integration in the Hollywood studio system*. I had gotten production and distribution, but finally it annoyed me enough to look up online.

Exhibition. Duh. I was grouping it in with distribution, which is so wrong.

I'm scoffing at myself.

And I'm a geek.

But if anyone ever asks you about the Studio system and vertical integration, all you have to remember is: production, distribution, exhibition.


*Vertical integration is a tactic used by companies to regulate a business by owning all of the levels of process. In film, the studios set up monopolies by controlling production (the making of film), distribution (the selling of film), and exhibition (the showing of film in cinemas, usually owned by the studios).

Vertical integration supposedly ended after the breakdown of the studio era, beginning in 1948 with the Paramount Decision in which studios practicing vertical integration were found to be in violation of anti-trust laws. The studio system was almost entirely dissolved by 1960, which lead to the independent movement. I predict, however, that vertical integration will be returning with a vengeance.