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562 HARVARD BUSINESS REPORTS
to the run of pictures it usually showed, many theaters often bought and showed other runs.
The problems arising out of protection difficulties were acute in cities other than Boston.
Early in 1928 the Detroit Film Board of Trade, an organization of exchange managers, perfected a uniform zoning plan for that city. Zone 1 was designated for exhibitors displaying first-run pictures only, who were to be given 28 days' protection over second runs of the same pictures. Zone 2 contained theaters which showed second-run pictures, and those theaters were to receive seven days' protection over theaters which showed the same pictures as third-run.1
In Cleveland there were, in 1928, 13 theaters which showed first-run pictures and 118 theaters which showed subsequent-run pictures. Loew's, Incorporated, operator of a nation-wide chain of theaters, had virtual control of the first and second-run theaters except for a few operated by the KeithAlbee Orpheum Circuit. The first-run theaters operated by Loew's, Incorporated, were receiving 56 days' protection over second runs. Subsequent-run theaters then declared a buying strike, demanding that the granting of such lengthy protection be abolished. The strike was settled by a compromise providing for a protection period of 42 days between first-run theaters and subsequent-run theaters.2
In New Orleans in 1928 some first-run theaters were enjoying 60 days' protection. In the past some of them had received as much as 90 days' protection.
The West Coast Theaters, Incorporated, which controlled a large number of theaters on the Pacific Coast, was trying to arrange, in 1928, a general plan of protection which would provide for as much as nine months' protection between the first-run theaters in metropolitan cities and theaters charging less than 20 cents admission. Several distributors agreed to grant the protection demanded by the company.3 The United States Department of Justice in 1928 took action against the West Coast Theaters, Incorporated, and others on the grounds that this general plan of protection was in restraint of trade.4
1 See Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World, April 21, 1928.
2 See Motion Picture News, March 31, 1928.
3 Film Daily, June 29, 1928.
4 See action filed in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California, Southern Division, by the United States Department of Justice in 1928 against West Coast Theaters, Incorporated, et al.