I'm going to begin this post with the lassst little piece of the (1) production studios to (2) channel to (3) distributor to (4) consumer vertical integration that has gone unmentioned before I delve into how mass media entertainment companies go beyond the realm of the silver, television, and mobile screen tor each you, the (4) consumer. Today: theme parks! Later: sportzballz!
The very first post on this website began IN MEDIA RES and discussed the history of the merging of (3) distributors to (2) channels & (1) production studios, which (1) and (2) had already merged before then.
The whole story of the merging of Film Studios and Television Networks is wholly worthy of its own post but when pared down it hhhhhhhonestly becomes a rather short subject: film studios saw value in television networks' content libraries and production studios and vice versa. Some mergers were pretty. Some were messy. But at the end of the day, every major studio (except Sony Pictures) teamed up or launched a full power broadcast network.
- The Walt Disney Company
- Film
- Walt Disney Pictures
- Walt Disney Animation
- Pixar
- Marvel
- LucasFilm
- 20th Century Studios (formally Fox)
- Blue Sky
- Television
- ABC Networks
- Freeform
- FX Networks
- Disney Channels
- National Geographic Channels
- ESPN Networks
- WarnerMedia
- Film
- Warner Bros
- New Line Cinema
- Castle Rock Entertainment
- DC Entertainment
- Television
- The CW (50.1% stake; formerly The WB)
- Turner Networks
- TBS / TNT / TruTV / TCM
- CNN / HeadLine News
- HBO / Cinemax
- Cartoon Network / adult swim / Boomerang
- NBCUniversal
- Film
- Universal Pictures
- Illumination
- Dreamworks Animation
- Focus Features
- Television
- NBC
- CNBC / MSNBC
- Cozi TV
- NBC Sports Networks
- Golf Channel
- Telemundo
- E! Networks
- E! / SyFy / Bravo / USA / Oxygen
- ViacomCBS
- Film
- Paramount Pictures
- Paramount Animation
- Television
- CBS
- CBS Sports Networks
- Dabl
- The CW (49.9% stake, formerly UPN)
- BET Networks
- Showtime
- TMC / Flix
- Comedy Central / CMT / Logo / MTV / Pop / Smithsonian / TV Land / VH1
- Nickelodeon Networks
- Sony Entertainment
- Film
- Sony Pictures
- Columbia / TriStar / Screen Gems
- Sony Pictures Animation
- Television
- Game Show Network
- getTV / Cine Sony / SMC
Let's pretend for a moment you put that remote down. Go outside! Get some air! Heck, let's load up the station wagon and drive down to the local theme park and oh heck we're back with the The Big Five aren't we? There's a good chance, yes!
And yes yes, oh yes, theme parks had exited before celluloid was a glimmer in Alexander Parkes' eye. In 1583 Dyrehavsbakken aka The Bakken open its gates in Klampenborg, Denmark to crowds eager to relax in natural mineral spring waters and enjoy the manicured gardens. And save for the period of 1669 to 1756, when the Danish Royal family closed out the public and enjoyed the nature park all to themselves, The Bakken grew furiously over the centuries with more vendors, shows, technological marvels, and eventually mechanical rides.
Media thrives by saturation. If your company's content does not wholly satisfy a consumer, they will find more content elsewhere. And if you can entertain the consumer out for just a few hours at the theater, why not the whole day or week while the consumer is on vacation? That way, you can marry the on-screen experience to the real world. That's what Walt Disney himself knew true back when he opened Disneyland in 1955. Experiencing your parasocial relationships, the relationships you have with imaginary broadcasted characters who cannot love you back because they do not really exist... experiencing those relationships gives those feelings a sense of real existence that film and television alone cannot begin to compete with. It creates a positive feedback cycle.
Universal Pictures had been giving backlot tours to its film productions since 1915. But with the glowing success of Disneyland and the concept of real-world content integration, they knew they had to leverage their properties in the same manner. They knew they couldn't compete at the same level as Walt Disney, but they could offer something a mostly-animation studio could not: actual actors. In 1964 they opened up Universal Studios, a humble tram-ride through some of their active and classic soundstages and backlots, including meet and greets with cast and crew. Four years later though the Screen Actors' Guild through debates with Universal, forbid the use of actual actors during actual television film for live entertainment purposes. Universal Studios pivoted and began creating rides and attractions, beginning easily with a petting zoo. The 1970s followed an era of creating amusements for children and adults, gradually re-branding them to Universal-owned properties.
In 1976 the Marriott Hotels corporation partnered with Warner Bros to license the Warner-owned Looney Tunes characters at their brand new park Great America just north of Chicago. Eight years later in 1984, the amusement park chain Six Flags purchased the Great America amusement park as part of their rapid expansion campaign. Unlike Disney or Universal who at the time had three parks between them, Six Flags had twice that. This greatly interested the Warner Bros investors who began buying up shares in Six Flags. By 1991, Warner owned a controlling interest in Six Flags. By 1993, they owned 100%. Warner Bros leveraged this as an opportunity to bring their properties to the people IRL. Batman: The Ride, a tie-in with Batman Returns was a massive success. Unfortunately, as the Six Flags acquisition was a purely financial decision, Warner had not put into place a management structure within their corporation to properly oversee their parks and resorts. Two years later, they sold half their shares and by 1998 they sold the entirety of Six Flags to Premier Parks. But while direct park management may not have been Warner's forte, content branding and financial wizardry was. Despite Premier Parks going bankrupt and Six Flags emerging from that bankruptcy in 2010 as self-owned, Warner Bros' has exclusive licensing agreements with Six Flags. Even today contemporary rides bearing the Warner Bros branding open at Six Flags parks world wide, such as 2016's Justice League: Battle for Metropolis.
As Warner Bros was finalizing their takeover of Six Flags, Paramount was eyeing how to get a slice of this pie as well. They found a multi-park company called KECO Entertainment and purchased them outright in 1992. Overnight Paramount Pictures found themselves in control of Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland. Paramount properties sprung up at the park: Top Gun, Face/Off, The Italian Job, Tomb Raider, Star Trek, and Nickelodeon Animation rides became cornerstones of these park's attractions. They branched out with a live-action interactive show in Las Vegas called Star Trek: The Experience. In 2006 though National Amusements, the parent company to Paramount, Viacom, and CBS, reshuffled their assets and Paramount Parks fell under the administration of CBS. Much like Warner Bros in the late 90s, CBS was unfamiliar with direct park management and sold the properties to Cedar Fair. But much UNLIKE Warner Bros' divestment, the new owner's use of Paramount names was optional and immediately dropped. Paramount was out of the amusement park game entirely. Yet now with ViacomCBS being officially merged into one company in 2019, instead of just sharing a parent company, Paramount has begun construction on a new Korean park, slated to open in the mid 2020s.
Meanwhile, Sony Pictures' theme park SONYLAND never got beyond the planning stages in 1991. Its central attraction reportedly would've been the Robin Williams film Hook. Given that Ghostbusters was licensed to Universal Studios at the time, a lack of marketable properties was probably a dealbreaking issue. The Funny Girl Experience? Tootsie: The Ride? We may never know.
Stay tuned for:
- Sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports spoooorts
- Wait isn't Fox still around?
- More ways to be direct with consumers aka streaming and the mistakes that were maaade
- Wait talk more about #content #saturation and cross-media marketing! Really? Yes!! OK...
- And more, campers!
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