Art Salazar directed our attention to this article from today's Los Angeles Times.

New 'Star Wars' to Hit Network TV Before Cable

By Sallie Hofmeister, Claudia Eller

George Lucas' current box-office hit, "Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace" will appear on free television long before it ever airs on cable--a growing trend in which the rules governing what happens to a big Hollywood movie after it leaves the theaters are increasingly being bent.

Under the deal that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. struck with Lucas last year, his 20th Century Fox movie studio released the sci-fi saga on the big screen last week, then will release it subsequently on home video. It then turns the film over to the Fox network for its television debut, bypassing cable.

That course deviates from the once-standard practice of sending movies, after their home video run, directly to pay cable channels such as Home Box Office and Showtime, before they appear on network television.

The model governing the TV airing of theatrically released films has been thrown out the window for a variety of reasons. The biggest is that media conglomerates such as News Corp., Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. now own movie studios as well as multiple cable and broadcast outlets, and aim to leverage those films in every way possible to fully exploit them across all lines of business.

Increasingly, movies made by 20th Century Fox are used to build the company's Fox broadcast network, while those produced by Warner Bros. studio typically are funneled first to one of Time Warner's entertainment channels such as the TNT cable channel.

While Fox does not own or control the "Star Wars" franchise, it's no wonder a powerful filmmaker such as Lucas would align his lucrative property with a media company such as Fox with the promotional and distribution muscle and the international reach to fully exploit the film worldwide.

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