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./SevenArts was sold two years later to a company with no background inentertainment.Kinney National Services had grown out of a familybusiness managing parking lots, car rental, contract cleaning and funeralhomes.In a similar move to that of Gulf and Western, Kinney sold off itsother businesses to concentrate on entertainment, renaming the companyWarner Communications, Inc.MCA Inc.was sold in 1990 for $6.6 billion to the Japanese electronicmanufacturer, Matsushita Electrical Industrial Company (and later in 1995to the Canadian drinks company Seagram, renaming the organisationUniversal Studios, Inc.).In 1982, Coca-Cola acquired Columbia for $752million, who in 1989 sold the studio to Matsushita's rival in theelectronics market, the Sony Corporation.These changes of ownershipsaw the former studios transferred into the hands of richer conglomerates.MGM however, the richest of the majors in the studio era, fell on hardtimes.Despite merging with United Artists in 1981, MGM is now the leastprofitable of the former majors, its position weakened by not having thelarger conglomerate backing that supports the other leading Hollywoodcompanies.With the wave of conglomeration came the trend towards diversifica-tion.The popular adoption of television during the 1950s had seen theHollywood studios diversify into television production and distribution.Conglomeration combined the Hollywood studios with interests in othersectors of business, including the publishing, media and entertainmentindustries.When Twentieth Century Fox was sold in 1985, it became partof the publishing, and later television, empire of News Corporation.Sonyhad bought Columbia the year after purchasing CBS Records.In 1990,Warner Communications was sold to the powerful publisher Time Inc.,forming the largest entertainment company in the world.However, diversification was not only the product of acquisition andmerger.Although originating as an important animation studio, the Walt82 THE STAR SYSTEMDisney Company only grew to prominence in the entertainment market-place in the 1950s, after starting its own theatrical distribution arm anddiversifying into television production and theme parks.Disney grew notby conglomeration but almost entirely through the launch of its owndiversified subsidiaries.A departure from this pattern was the purchase ofthe ABC Network in 1996 for $19 billion, consolidating Disney's positionas the world's second largest media and entertainment company.Withinterests in broadcasting, film production and distribution, theme parks,tourism, merchandise, theatre stage productions, and Internet contentand delivery, Disney is one of the clearest examples of how Hollywood hasbeen changed by the trend towards diversification.By the end of the 1990s it was increasingly difficult to view theAmerican film industry as separable from a broader entertainmentmarketplace.Compared to the vertically integrated structure of Hollywoodin the studio era of the 1930s and 1940s, the era of conglomeration anddiversification is probably best understood by what Thomas Schatzdescribes as the trend towards 'horizontal integration' (1993: 35).High Concept, the Event Movie and the Marketability of the StarDespite changes in ownership, Hollywood continues to be based on thepackage-unit system of production.In the studio era, films could be soldin blocks, with marketing costs spread across several films.However, inthe package-unit system, films are marketed individually, with P&A (printsand advertising) expenditure attached to the single film.Figures indicatethe equal emphasis placed in contemporary Hollywood on the making andmarketing of films.During the 1990s the Motion Picture Association ofAmerica (MPAA), the industry body representing the collective interests ofthe major producers and distributors in Hollywood, estimated that for thefilms made by its members, the average production or negative cost (i.e.the cost of producing a feature film's finished negative) grew from $26.8million in 1990 to $51.5 million in 1999 (see MPAA 1999).Paralleling thisrise in production expenditure, marketing or prints and advertising costsgrew in proportion from $12 million in 1990 to $24.5 million in 1999.83 SHORT CUTSCompared to an average combined negative and P&A expenditure of$38.8 million in 1990, the average cost of making and marketing featuresby members of the MPAA had nearly doubled by 1999, reaching $76million.During the studio era, producers had looked towards novel ways bywhich movies could be tied in to the promotion of products in ancillarymarkets, and the contemporary industry has looked in similar ways tospread the marketability of film properties.In his study of Hollywood filmin the 1980s and 1990s, Justin Wyatt (1994) argues that films haveincreasingly become the focus for various marketing opportunities.Marketresearch is seen to inform not only the development of a successful filmbut also to explore how the film may promote other merchandise, forexample soundtracks, mugs, T-shirts and food stuffs.Central torecognising success in all these fields is the premise, the basicmarketable idea that can be exploited in the sale of the film and allancillary merchandise.To describe this close integration of cinema withmarketability, Wyatt uses the term popularised by the industry in the1980s - 'high concept' - which he describes as 'a form of narrative whichis highly marketable' (p.12).Wyatt suggests that the idea of high conceptentered industry thinking through projects based on a simple premisewhich could be marketed to maximum effect
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