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BOSTON THEATERS 567
irregular flow of income. Exchange managers constantly were seeking means of making the income from their pictures more regular. With the showing of pictures held up by irregular protection agreements and by delays of exhibitors, it became almost impossible to regulate income in any way. Exchange managers also attempted to operate their exchanges with as few prints of each picture as possible. Most of the Boston exchanges used eight prints of each picture; one Boston exchange used 18. The eight prints were usually a sufficient number for first and second runs, but frequently were an inadequate number to take care of the more numerous third and fourth runs. When more than eight prints were required, the exchange customarily borrowed additional prints from the distributor's nearest other exchange. After the prints of a picture had arrived at the exchange, and before they were used by the first-run theaters in the different zones, they were idle on the shelves and brought in no revenue. Exchange managers, therefore, usually attempted to induce the first-run theaters to show a picture as early as possible. As soon as this showing had been completed, the picture became subject to the period of protection granted the first-run theaters. During the period of protection granted the first-run theaters in Metropolitan Boston, the Boston exchanges utilized their prints by sending them to other centers in New England, such as Portland, Maine, and Worcester, Massachusetts, for first runs in those centers.
The unstandardized system of protection constituted a serious problem to the booker at the exchange. It was his duty to arrange the dating of pictures by the exhibitors and to see that all exhibitors showed each picture as early as possible. In dating pictures to exhibitors, he was required to give strict adherence to all protection agreements. The necessity of observing the protection agreements of numerous contracts each time he dated a picture made his task difficult.
To meet these problems a Boston theater manager proposed that the Boston exchanges standardize their protection agreements by granting all theaters showing the first run of a picture 21 days' protection dating immediately after the completion of their showing, and all theaters showing the second run of a picture 7 days' protection after showing. Protection over a longer period of time against theaters charging extremely low admission prices