Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis

This paper identifies four basic economic characteristics underlying the evolution of the motion picture industry. First, the importance of endogenous sunk costs led to a quality race in the 1910s that left European companies behind. Second, the fact that marginal revenues equalled marginal profits led to extreme vertical integration. Third, a public-good characteristic of motion pictures – non-diminishability – led to a skewed income distribution among talent, with a few superstars taking most pay, although the Hollywood studios mitigated this with seven-year contracts. Fourth, the project-based nature of film production yielded large intra- and inter-industry agglomeration benefits, leading to geographical concentration. In reaction to this changing economic environment European firms formed alliances – eventually thwarted by the rise of protection and fascism – and focused on highly differentiated films. Policy makers reacted with protectionist legislation that offered European consumers more variety at the expense of quality; provided a countervailing power to the colluding Hollywood studios at the expense of increased national resources used in film production; enabled an improved balance of payment at the expense of trade friction with the u.s.; and created national agglomeration benefits possibly at the expense of other or new creative industries.

This paper is a contribution to the debate concerning the factors affecting film-going in the Netherlands in the 1930s. We start with an analysis of the nature of the Dutch cinema market by comparing it to the Anglo-Saxon model of film distribution and showing. We then examine the evidence concerning the part played by high prices, religion and social class. In doing this we model the impact of prices on film-going in the Dutch and British markets and produce evidence to suggest that as much as 80 per cent of the difference in cinema attendance between the two countries can be explained by that fact that much higher prices were being charged in the Netherlands. We also show that the presence of Protestants correlated negatively with cinema provisions (low number of cinema seats per capita) whereas the presence of wealthy tax-payers correlated positively with the number of cinema seats.

In line with the international shift from film studies to new cinema history, in this article we rethink the acclaimed American dominance in film supply in the 1930s in the city of Ghent, Belgium. In the first part we briefly sketch the context of the varied film-showing and cinema-going culture in Ghent during the 1930s. The second, empirical part consists of an analysis of the findings derived from the showing and programming databases from 1933 to 1936. Particular attention is paid to the profile of the cinema theatres, and the trends in the distribution, prolongation and retakes of European and American film productions. The article shows the impact of the historical context of the theatre, the programming strategies used by the cinema management to target different audiences, the preferred trajectory of the American distributors, and the importance of the spoken language for the cinema experience. It reveals a more modest presence of the American feature film during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system. They were successful in smaller district theatres rather than the central film palaces, which were oriented to European productions.

For almost fifty years cinema-going in Antwerp was strongly influenced by one man, Georges Heylen, and his Rex cinema group. By means of a multimethod analysis, this article investigates the structures of Antwerp’s inner city cinematic landscape, linking it to the cinemas’ supply of films on the one hand and film reception on the other. Because of Heylen’s powerful position, which went beyond the local market, the case of Antwerp lends itself to drawing conclusions on a micro-level about cinema history as well as to inviting comparative research on micro and macro-economic dynamics and the role of different players within the film industry.

This article discusses how the local offices of international theatrical film distributors (Hollywood majors) dealt with Dutch films in the context of changing market conditions in the period 1990-2005. Due to its small size, the Netherlands was primarily perceived as a distribution market for the international films that the Los Angeles-based headquarters delivered to their local subsidiaries. The distribution of domestic films was not seen as a market opportunity. In 1989, uip the Netherlands – a collaboration between Paramount, Universal and mgm – was forced to venture into the distribution of Dutch films by the European Commission in order to comply with anti-trust legislation. In the 1990s, fuelled by new government subsidies and the appointment of a new director at Warner Bros Holland, Dutch films saw a rise in market shares that led to a more active policy by Warner Bros and Buena Vista International, primarily concentrating on the distribution of Dutch family films. Sony Pictures and Fox never became involved in this niche market. The distribution of international fare remained the prime activity for all majors on the Dutch market. However, by the end of the 1990s, the distribution of Dutch (family) films had become an interesting additional local activity for some. It is striking that the local activities of a new director at Warner Bros, the most hierarchically-led major, served as a catalyst for this change in approach.

In 1998, the Netherlands introduced tax incentives for film production. Less than ten years later, in 2007, these were abolished again as the incentives had proven to be neither effective nor efficient. This article describes the reasons for introducing the incentives and what the effect of the incentives was, both in terms of costs to the government and of film output. Furthermore, it addresses the discussions that took place with the European Commission on the question whether these incentives were compatible with the European prohibition of state aid. It also describes the process that led to the abolishment of the incentives in 2007. The article shows why the Dutch tax incentives for films became the example of how not to use tax incentives to achieve certain policy objects.

This article scrutinizes the way artistic and commercial interests are combined at contemporary film festival markets. It focuses on one particular format, the co-production market, during which filmmakers can present their projects to potential financiers and pays special attention to the organisation and programme of the first co-production market, CineMart. Since the 1990s, CineMart’s model has been followed by a series of co-production markets worldwide. This article seeks both to contextualize the rise of these markets and to pose critical questions with regard to its effects on the influence of market demands vis-à-vis film festivals’ cultural objective.

In the United States, fan magazines formed an integral part of the film industry from the early 1910s onwards. The reciprocal relationship between film press and the cinema trade in a small country such as the Netherlands has hardly been studied. This contribution explores the history of the film magazine in the context of the Dutch film industry (circa 1920-1960). The most flourishing era of the film magazine was during the interwar years. Entrepreneur Pier Westerbaan combined the roles of journalist, publisher and printer in producing the fan magazine Cinema en theater, a trade journal, as well as many other printed materials such as programmes, posters and periodicals. His good network in the cinema business community, and the broad, general interest formula of his fan magazine both contributed to Westerbaan’s success. The period after World War ii proved to be less prosperous: popular film periodicals had relatively short lifespans, and after 1952 no Dutch fan magazine of substance appeared for decades. Further to the fan magazines aimed at the general movie-going audiences, more marginal, specialized journals have appeared since the 1920s, targeted at specific niche markets of cinephiles and Catholics. These journals did not have strong ties to the Dutch cinema industry as a commercial undertaking.