Hollywood and the Television Age

New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 20

Hollywood and the Television Age

ce OTION pictures are entering their third major era. First there was the silent period. Then the sound era. Now we are on the threshold of the television age. . . I predict that within just a few years a great many Hollywood producers, directors, writers and actors who are still coasting on reputations built up in the past are going to wonder what hit them." In these words in an article called Hollywood in the Television HS published in the New York Times ‘in February, 1949, Samuel Goldwyn drew attention to a new situation that had arisen in the glittering arena of American entertainment. Someone called it "The Battle of the Century, Movies v. Television." Since the war, television in the United States has grown remarkably fast. Today there are six million television set owners in the country, and their number is skyrocketing. Indeed, the recent falling-off in film attendances in the States has been blamed partly on the activities of the television companies. So television has become recognised as afi ever-growing threat to the motion-

picture industry’s "longevity, importance, and income." What are the film companies doing about it? Their immediate reaction has heen in the form of a boycott. They have been keeping their films off the television networks, forbidding their stars to appear in television, and buying up the .most promising television talent. But it seems likely that falling film revenues-if they continue to fall-may make the movie big shots try to effect some sort of compromise. A number of picture theatres have recently closed down in the States, 580 in the past six months, out of a total of about 20,000, partly because of television’s competition,