Hollywood Lobbies For Industry Futures

 April 22. 2010

Hollywood

In the biggest rip-off yet, Hollywood is lobbing the US Congress for industry futures to be traded on the stock market. Hollywood, a town built on organized crime seed money, thievery and criminal copyright infringement, seeks to offer the public the dubious opportunity to bet on the future performance of Hollywood films that most so-called industry executives can't even predict.

Considering movie audience attendance and music sales have steadily plummeted, prompting the industry to increase prices to show some kind of profit, while reaching less people with their products, banking on Hollywood is like wagering on the Titanic (and no, I'm not talking about the movie).

The fact of the matter is most Hollywood films and albums fail, ending up in the red. Studios and labels home for a few releases to do well, to save them from dozens of flops and financial failures. It is not like the food or airline industry in America, steadily packing in customers based on services people need.

Box-office futures are dealt a blow

April 22, 2010 - A Senate panel votes to ban the proposed futures exchanges, which are opposed by studios. Don't bet on betting on the box office.

A Senate committee dealt a big blow to the plans of two trading firms looking to create a box-office futures exchange that would allow the movie industry as well as investors to wager on movie ticket sales...

http://www.latimes.com