Film Libraries

Film Libraries. What are they? Are Film Libraries places you can go to and check out films to watch? Sounds better and cheaper than the video store, but sorry, that is not what a Film Libraries are. Film Libraries are the collections of movies that film studios amass over time. Film Libraries comprise all the films the studio has made over the years. These Film Libraries can be very valuable properties even if the studio hasn't made a hit movie in years. Some studios have kept themselves alive by mining the value of the Film Libraries while they are waiting for their next bit hit. Some movie studios have been purchased for the Film Libraries alone.

Studios can make a lot of money from their Film Libraries. They make money from the Film Libraries by licensing them to TV networks for either a certain length of time or for a certain number of airings per film. The licensing deals for Film Libraries can be very lucrative, depending upon the quality and quantity of films in the Film Libraries. With the advent of cable TV, TV networks are hungry for quality programming to fill all the hours they are on the air.

Another way for studios to make money from their Film Libraries is to license them for home video. The studio's Film Libraries end up in release for home video, either by the studio selling the home video rights for the Film Libraries to a home video distributor or by the studio's forming their own home video distribution company for the purpose of distributing their Film Libraries to the home video market. If the studios form their own home video distribution companies for the purpose of making their Film Libraries available to the home video market, then they have much more control over how their Film Libraries are handled and marketed, but they also shoulder more of the risk and expense and it may take them longer to see a return on their Film Libraries.

But now that the home video market is so well established, it is no longer so complicated or risky for the movie studios to create their own home video distribution companies to bring their Film Libraries to the home video market. With all the new distribution channels now available to the film studios for the Film Libraries, the Film Libraries have become a very valuable property and a very big business for the studios. Where once they only made films and distributed them to theaters, now studios do a large portion of their business by licensing and distributing their Film Libraries.

< Back To Film Next Previous