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Blind Bids and Clearance Zones
The Economics of the Paramount Decrees

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About this book:

Blind Bids and Clearance Zones For seventy years, an invisible rulebook dictated what played on American screens, how long it stayed there, and who pocketed the profits. *Blind Bids and Clearance Zones* cracks open the engine of Hollywood’s golden age and its long, regulated afterlife, revealing how the Supreme Court’s 1948 *Paramount* decision didn’t just break up a studio monopoly—it accidentally engineered a rigid, court-supervised marketplace that governed every ticket sold, every screen built, and every contract signed until a federal judge finally erased the decrees in August 2020.

With the precision of an economist and the narrative drive of a historian, the book traces the mechanics that powered the industry: the "blind bidding" that forced theater owners to lease unseen films, the "clearance zones" that carved geographic fiefdoms for downtown palaces, and the brutal arithmetic of "house nuts" and sliding-scale splits that funneled up to ninety percent of box-office revenue back to distributors. You’ll watch the factory system of Mayer and Zukor collide with the rise of the megaplex, witness independent exhibitors revolt in state legislatures, and see how the same antitrust framework designed for celluloid prints on trucks buckled under the weight of VHS, digital cinema, and streaming platforms.

This is the secret financial history of the movies—the reason your neighborhood theater vanished, why the theatrical window collapsed, and why today’s tech giants are racing to rebuild the very vertical integration the government spent seven decades dismantling. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the business behind the magic, *Blind Bids and Clearance Zones* is the definitive post-mortem of the most durable regulatory regime in cultural history, and a roadmap for the unregulated frontier that has taken its place.

Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 The Golden Age Monopoly: Studio Integration and the Factory System
  • Chapter 2 The Mechanisms of Control: Block-Booking, Blind Bidding, and Circuit Theaters
  • Chapter 3 Independent Exhibitors Rebel: The Legal Road to United States v. Paramount Pictures
  • Chapter 4 The Supreme Court Decides: Dismantling the Studio Monolith
  • Chapter 5 The 1948 Decrees: Divestiture and the Mandate for Film-by-Film Licensing
  • Chapter 6 Defining the Marketplace: The Theory of Regulated Film Distribution
  • Chapter 7 Geography of Exhibition: The Origin and Architecture of Clearance Zones
  • Chapter 8 Spatial Monopoly: Balancing Exclusive Runs and Market Access
  • Chapter 9 Blind Bidding Under Fire: The Information Asymmetry in Film Licensing
  • Chapter 10 The Bid Process: Competitive Bidding Mechanics and the Rule of Reason
  • Chapter 11 The Arithmetic of Exhibition: Minimum Guarantees and Sliding Scale Splits
  • Chapter 12 The "House Nut": Floor Clauses and the Allocation of Box Office Risk
  • Chapter 13 The Mid-Century Transition: Roadshows, Epics, and Run Sequencing
  • Chapter 14 Hollywood's Antitrust Bureaucracy: Compliance, Arbitration, and the DoJ
  • Chapter 15 Rise of the Megaplex: Suburbanization and the Stretching of Clearance Borders
  • Chapter 16 The Multiplex Boom and Anti-Competitive Squeeze Plays
  • Chapter 17 The State Law Counter-Offensive: Statutory Bans on Blind Bidding
  • Chapter 18 New Media Disruptions: Cable, Home Video, and Windowing Economics
  • Chapter 19 Studio Ownership Creep: The 1980s Loosening and Circuit Re-Acquisitions
  • Chapter 20 Circuit Consolidation: Monopsony Power of the Big Exhibition Chains
  • Chapter 21 The Digital Cinema Transition: Virtual Print Fees and Modern Market Control
  • Chapter 22 Streaming Platforms, Day-and-Date Releases, and Window Collapses
  • Chapter 23 The Sunset Review: The Department of Justice Moves to Terminate
  • Chapter 24 The August 2020 Repeal: Legal Arguments and Industry Fallout
  • Chapter 25 The New Hollywood Market: Post-Decree Consolidation and the Future of Film Licensing
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Author:

Pamela K. Sullivan

Published By:

MixCache.com Extended Catalog

Type:

Nonfiction

Date Published:

September 27, 2026

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