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Interessanter Artikel über die Situation der großen Filmstudios in Hollywood. Auswirkungen auf Singulus werden nicht lange auf sich warten lassen..
Hollywood studios in midst of their own horror show
The recent firings and hirings of studio executives at Disney, Universal and elsewhere point to a widespread corporate panic amid sharp declines in DVD sales.
By John Horn, Ben Fritz and Rachel Abramowitz
October 6, 2009
[..]
Hollywood's biggest slasher story isn't playing at any theater near you. It's hitting the industry's corporate suites, where the sacking of studio executives has reached epidemic level.
As evidenced by Disney's recent firing of its studio chief, Dick Cook, and Universal Pictures' dismissal Monday of chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde, Hollywood is in a state of panic-producing turmoil.
It used to be that Hollywood's corporate parents could stomach a dry spell from their studio managers. But as
DVD sales have collapsed
by as much as 25% at some studios,
access to outside financing has vanished and production and marketing costs remain sky-high, media companies are cracking under all the pressure.
[..]
"There's been more change in the last 18 months than in the preceding 18 years,"
said Mark Gill, CEO of the Film Department, an independent film finance company.
[..]
But as the global economy tanked, so did DVD income. According to Digital Entertainment Group,
DVD sales fell 9% in 2008 and were off 13.5% in the first half of 2009.
The DVD ledgers are equally bleak overseas; owing to widespread piracy, some studios essentially have closed DVD operations in the once-profitable Spanish and South Korean territories.
[..]
Paramount Pictures, the only movie studio to report its finances separately, has seen its profits fall consistently. While revenue was growing until this year,
Paramount's operating income has fallen like a boulder, down 22% in 2007 and 75% in 2008 until it swung to a
loss of $148 million in the first half of 2009.
[..]
"It does something radical to an industry when
$12 billion to $14 billion
suddenly goes away," said Gill. "That places an enormous strain on the system.
And nothing is replacing it.
It used to be 'let's get the Germans' and then the Germans went away, so it was 'let's get the Japanese' or 'let's get the insurance companies.' There was always going to be somebody else. Now it looks like it's not going to be someone else."
[..]
Quelle: www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...2009oct06,0,702751.story
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