Boxoffice Pro - Winter 2020

“Home video is actually a
blessing to exhibitors, because
it’s tapped into the people
who are not contributing to
Hollywood film production.”
—Dan Harkins, 1985
MTV-like model to put movie marketing
(including trailers and interviews)
into thousands of homes. Video was
also presented as a medium to attract
audiences who did not go to the movies
at all. “Home video is actually a blessing
to exhibitors, because it’s tapped into
the people who are not contributing to
Hollywood film production,” explained
Dan Harkins in October 1985. A
businessman in the videocassette field
went even further in a 1981 article:
“[Exhibitors] possess a knowledge that no
other group of businessmen have in this
country. They know motion pictures and
how to sell them. It follows that they are
the best-prepared group to become video
cassette and disc retailers.” Auerbach
agreed in a 1984 editorial, stating that “the
rental business is a bit different from the
usual snack bar activity, but hardly an
overwhelming challenge to the theater
employee.” Indeed, a few small theaters
presented in the magazine, like Fred
Kaysbier’s theater in Ogallala, Nebraska,
or the Village Theater in Knoxville, Iowa,
turned to video sales.
The Window Issue
What also concerned exhibitors was the
matter of theatrical exclusivity windows.
Talks about windows went back to the
birth of TV, but the ’80s was the decade
that saw the issue become much more
prevalent in the magazine’s coverage. The
editorial line was clear. “Exhibition must
battle to preserve its place as the first-run
outlet for product from Hollywood,” wrote
Auerbach in November 1980, following
an unofficial NATO convention in New
Orleans dedicated to the topic. Auerbach
was especially concerned by the evershrinking
window between theatrical
releases and cassette releases, noting that
some videocassettes were released while
films were still in theaters. That was not
only true for smaller films but for bigger
box office successes like Purple Rain,
which became available on tape only six
months after its initial theatrical release.
“What became of the unwritten rule
of a one-year window (now ostensibly
six months but, in reality, four-orless
months) on film to videotape
transfers?” asked editor Harley W.
Lond in December 1984. He noted that
distributors, benefiting from word of
mouth from theatrical releases, were
eager to shorten the windows further.
Subsequent-run theaters were hit the
hardest. Auerbach wrote, in May 1984,
that “a reasonable ‘window’ between
theatrical and cassette release would at
least help the first-run houses, although
sub-run theaters would still have a
tougher row to hoe.” The observation was
echoed by George Kerasotes, president of
Kerasotes Theaters, who in 1981 declared,
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