Film and Television: Making of A Mutually Beneficial Alliance

Abstract

The article reflects on the complicated relations between film industry and television in the field of content over the period of their coexistence. Since the outset and throughout three main generations of TV history studios have stayed the principal suppliers of content to feed the ever growing programming traffic of broadcast stations, cable and satellite channels and now internet film services, particularly streaming platforms. The study researches the first two periods of TV evolution concerning its contacts with Hollywood. The peculiarities of relations between two leading media technologies in the age of the internet will be examined later.
It is pointed out that these ties have not been developing smoothly. At first studios looked down upon the start-up and did not consider it equal, but pretty soon they had to change their opinion and see the advantages of cooperation with the growing competitor. They realized that despite the fact that TV drew from theaters a big part of the audience, it may become an important means of film distribution and additional source of revenues. Pay film channels of different formats and specialties grew in number and needed more and more content. In the 1980s video players — at first cassette, then DVD — opened before the users wide range of options to watch whatever and whenever they want, not limited by TV schedule. Nowadays the internet provides streaming service subscribers with even more freedom.
However, the article agues, that proliferation of channels launched the process of audience fragmentation, when once monolithic mass of TV viewers began breaking into numerous small groups, united by interest, gender, age, education and other socio-demographic characteristics, thus depriving people of the so-called “social glue”, but at the same time providing them with the option of choice”.