Flexible home entertainment: Hollywood's response to home video

This dissertation in the field of film studies, communications studies and new media raises important issues about the relationship between corporate strategies and the convergence of media. A history of home video distribution, it covers the relationship between film distribution and home entertainment: at the turn of the century, during the development of television, and in the current era of flexible home entertainment. Home video was introduced as a new consumer technology in the 1970s. Consumers adopted it in order to enhance their flexibility over leisure time. However, the primary distributors of filmed entertainment products, the Hollywood studios, were slow to develop strategies for the emerging market in pre-recorded cassettes. New, independent distributors, such as Vestron Video, flourished for a few years, going out of business as Hollywood adapted.Home video now provides as much revenue to the major film studios as their theatrical market. These new revenues encourage major studios to spend even more money on production and marketing of "event" films, raising the entry barrier against competitors. Home video distribution has become an extension of the distribution of major films. I argue that the potential for new companies and new products to take advantage of a new medium was not realized. New technologies of cultural production did not lead to new cultural products. Home video was the revolution that did not take place.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio