Content area
Full Text
Research in business and economic history has increasingly focused on the robust nature of the contemporary American economy. This research has led to new debates about the relevance of different sectors of the national economy, and of specific firms within these sectors. The new scholarship and the debates it spawned, however, have largely ignored the importance of the media and entertainment business in recent economic development. In the past twenty years, consumer spending in this sector of the economy has risen at roughly twice the rate of overall consumer spending. In 1993 alone, Americans spent approximately $340 billion to entertain themselves, more money than they paid for traditional high-cost items like health care, motor vehicles, or housing and utilities [Mandel, Landler, and Grover, 1994, pp. 59-66; Screen Actor, p. 4].
This paper identifies prominent trends and pattems in the entertainment business and provides a few thumbnail sketches of leading firms in the field. In doing so, it throws light on the growing significance of the entertainment economy and explains that a handful of capital-intensive, transnational firms have established a near monopoly in this sector of economic life.
Major Trends and Patterns If one word applies to American leisure patterns it is diversity. Americans now have more ways of amusing themselves than ever. Spending patterns in the United States help to illustrate this point. We now pay about $13 billion a year for movie tickets and film-video rentals, $19 billion to watch cable television, and $10 billion for recorded music. We spend another $12 billion to see sporting events, musical concerts, and other kinds of live entertainment; $14 billion to attend amusement and theme parks; and a whopping $28 billion on gambling. When one factors in money spent on entertainment "hardware" the figures soar even higher. Toys and sporting equipment account for about $65 billion in spending. VCRs, televisions, CD players, and videotapes another $50 billion; still another $50 billion goes for books, magazines, and newspapers. Even these figures obscure the diversity in leisure-time spending. They ignore, for example, money spent at restaurants and cafes, and on things like sailboats, private planes, and the like [Armstrong, 1997, pp. 130-34; Vogel, 1991, p. 10; Mandel, Landler, and Grover, 1994, pp. 59-66; Economist 1997, p. 114].
Corporate...