Harvard business reports (1930)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Wellington Theater1 motion picture theater Purchasing' — Determination of Flat Rental Prices to Offer. A theater manager who was opposed to percentage bookings of all kinds was faced with the problem of how to determine an equitable flat rental price when contracting for yearly film requirements in advance. An analysis of the various classes of pictures shown and the variations in receipts and expenditures during the preceding year gave a basis for judgment as to the potential receipts for future pictures of the same grades. From these studies an average flat rental price for the different kinds of pictures was determined. (1928) In May, 1928, the manager of the Wellington Theater was confronted with the task of contracting for his yearly film requirements in advance. This process involved the selection of desirable pictures from the offerings of various producer-distributors and the determination of a rental price which the theater could afford to pay for such product. The Wellington Theater was situated in Whitefield, an exclusive residential suburb of Cleveland, and presented motion pictures of the best quality to satisfy a discriminating clientele. Programs were of the double-feature type, consisting of a featured production, a program feature, short subjects, and newsreels. Changes were made twice each week so that 208 pictures constituted the average yearly feature requirements of the theater. Two types of contracts were open to an exhibitor in purchasing motion pictures. He could either negotiate for a flat rental price for the pictures offered by a distributor or he could agree to play such pictures on a percentage arrangement. The most common arrangement provided for the payment of a guaranteed sum plus a percentage of all gross receipts in excess of a certain amount. The setting of the guaranty and the split figure was a matter for bargaining between the distributor and exhibitor. The exhibitor attempted to limit the guaranty to 1 Fictitious name. 572