I give 20th Century Fox credit for taking two bold risks during its run in the 1970s that have both had major impacts on the film industry and have both had positive impacts on my life as a film fan. One is greenlighting the production of Star Wars, and the other, which I will be discussing in this article, is entering the home video market.

Back in the late sixties, a Michigan-born businessman named Andre Blay founded an audio/video production company called Magnetic Video Corporation. That company started out producing industrial videos for corporations, but after Sony introduced Betamax in the seventies, Blay shopped the idea of converting feature films to videocassette tapes to various Hollywood studios. The only studio that responded with an offer was 20th Century Fox, which allowed Magnetic to license fifty of the studio’s pre-1972 feature films for sale on home video, which proved to be a huge commercial success and eventually led Magnetic to more licensing deals with Viacom, ABC Pictures and United Artists.

Through Magnetic, Blay began direct-mail video sales through his Video Club of America, which was the earliest precursor to the model that led to video rental stores and eventually the establishment of Netflix (even the film Clerks wouldn’t exist without this guy). By 1987, home video rental revenue would surpass theater ticket revenue and by decade’s end the home video market was firmly supplanted as a crucial part of the Hollywood film industry.

The success of the Fox-Magnetic deal in the seventies led to 20th Century Fox buying Magnetic Video in 1979 and changing the name of the company to 20th Century Fox Video. Blay became the first CEO of Fox’s home video arm, although he left the company in 1981.

Another company entering the world of home video in the late seventies was CBS, which established CBS Video Enterprises in 1979. They formed a joint venture with MGM a year later, establishing MGM/CBS Home Video, but that only lasted until 1982 (MGM would have a longer and more fruitful home video partnership with United Artists, the company that they merged with in 1981, with MGM/UA’s video arm lasting until the late nineties). After the MGM partnership ended, CBS teamed up with 20th Century Fox to form CBS/Fox Video (after CBS purchased a stake in 20th Century Fox Video). With this new partnership came the prioritization of purchase over rental as a primary income source, leading to direct deals with retail stores like Toys “R” Us in 1985, which was such a lucrative move that Disney made their own deal with Toys “R” Us soon after.

CBS/Fox formed two primary home video sub-labels in this period: Key Video and Playhouse Video. Key Video exploited the catalog titles from the CBS and Fox libraries including classic films like Young Frankenstein (as well as films that Fox did not own like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman), while Playhouse Video did the same but with an emphasis on titles aimed at children and family audiences such as various Muppets videos and the animated Peanuts and Dr. Seuss TV specials (my family owned The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, Dr. Seuss on the Loose and The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat on home video, so I just automatically associate that opening logo with Dr. Seuss now). Both labels lasted until 1991, which was the year that CBS and Fox split apart, which led to the formation of Fox Video, with former CBS/Fox vice president Bob DeLellis put in charge as the company’s new president.

In 1995 (the same year that Fox finally bought out CBS’s stake) Fox Video was renamed 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. And as you can imagine based on the popularity of movies like Star Wars and TV shows like The Simpsons, the company has become one of the most profitable of all home video companies. Today they operate under the name 20th Century Home Entertainment following Disney’s acquisition of the company in 2019 and the retirement of the “Fox” in 20th Century Fox. Now they are primarily used as Disney’s home video distribution arm for the films and TV shows of 20th Century and Searchlight.