This is on the Media's Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Lohncher.

Television writers are currently striking in protest of streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus,

which have come to dominate our entertainment industry.

The writer's Guild of America says the streamers are to blame for lower pay, poor residuals,

and shaky job security. In order to understand our current media moment,

this week we're looking back at a pivotal time for the film industry,

when the government successfully broke up the major studios that ruled Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s.

In February, I asked historian Peter Labusa to take us back to before the trust

busting to the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood.

There's these touch-tone films like Gone with the Wind, which remains the biggest film of all time

adjusted for inflation, or the Wizard of Oz.

It's a wonderful life, which I'm sure many people watched over Christmas.

Each one of the studios, there were five big studios at the time.

Some of these are studios you know like Paramount and MGM and Warner Brothers.

They were producing over 100 films a year. Right now, a studio like Disney will release into

movie theaters maybe about eight or nine? That sounds great. I mean, high artistic output,

some of the quote-unquote best movies of all time. I mean, why did the government say we need to step

in and start regulating Hollywood? The studios made the movies, they distributed them,

and then they owned most of the big important movie theaters you went to see.

If you were an independent movie theater, you could buy films from the studios to show.

Now, the problem was if you wanted a big film starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford,

the studio would sell it to you for a week-long release, but then they would make you buy 11 other

...