The end of 2022 witnessed the sunsetting of the Paramount consent decrees, a monumental antitrust case that broke up Hollywood's studio system. In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood was run by five big studios and three smaller ones, which controlled not only the production of movies, but also their distribution in movie theaters. This vertical integration caught the attention of the Department of Justice's antitrust division, and in 1948 a Supreme Court decision resulted in the Paramount decrees, which broke up the studios' monopolies and ushered in a new era of independent filmmaking. In this interview with Micah Loewinger, Peter Labuza, a film historian and a researcher with the International Cinematographers Guild, says the history of the Paramount decrees offers lessons for how to think about the ubiquity of today’s streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, and the impact they're having on audiences and the filmmaking industry alike. 

This is a segment from our February 3, 2023 show, Too Big to Fail?.