Magnetic Video

Magnetic Video Corporation was a home video/home audio duplication service that operated between 1968 and 1982.

History

Magnetic Video Corporation was established by the co-founder Andre Blay, an American film producer in 1968 with Leon Nicholson and was based in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1977, it became the first corporation to release theatrical motion pictures onto Betamax and VHS videocassette for consumer use.
Magnetic Video is notable for its contribution to the birth of the modern-day home video empire and the birth of video rental systems. In the fall of 1976, Blay came up with the idea to release pre-recorded motion pictures on videocassette. The following year, he convinced 20th Century-Fox, which was then in financial difficulty, to license fifty of their films for home video release in VHS and Betamax formats. Blay also established the Video Club of America in order to sell the titles directly to consumers by mail. Their first ad appeared in the November 26 to December 2 Issue of TV Guide.
That same year, George Atkinson bought one Betamax and one VHS copy of each of the first 50 movie titles from Magnetic Video that were then being sold to the public and established the Video Station rental company from a storefront in Los Angeles. He charged $50 for an "annual membership" and $100 for a "lifetime membership," which provided the opportunity to rent the videos for $10 a day.
These 50 titles were:

Hello, Dolly!
Fantastic Voyage
Von Ryan's Express
The King And I
Patton
The Hustler
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Cleopatra
The French Connection
Hombre
The Only Game in Town
Can-Can
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Graduate
The Desert Fox
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
The Bible
The Boston Strangler
Tora! Tora! Tora!
The Detective
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
The Longest Day
The Grapes of Wrath
The Robe
How to Marry a Millionaire
Dr. Dolittle
The Panic in Needle Park
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
Vanishing Point
The Sand Pebbles
State Fair
Bus Stop
Three Coins in the Fountain
From the Terrace
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
The Song of Bernadette
How to Steal a Million
How Green Was My Valley
M*A*S*H
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing
Anastasia
Boy on a Dolphin
The Hot Rock
The Seven Year Itch
Valley of the Dolls
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
The Long, Hot Summer
The Paper Chase
Carmen Jones
The Razor's Edge
A Farewell to Arms

This and similar video stores were a success, and Magnetic Video took off, adding titles from the following companies in the next four years, in addition to continuing to release original titles from Fox:

1978: Viacom, RBC Films/The Charlie Chaplin estate, and AVCO Embassy Pictures
1979: Brut Productions, Bill Burrud Productions, and Pathé newsreels
1980: ABC Video Enterprises, ITC, and American Film Theatre
1981: United Artists, in addition to establishing short-lived sports and laserdisc divisions.

The Magnetic Video project was such a success that it soon came over to the United Kingdom as "Magnetic Video UK" in 1978. Not long after, Magnetic Video branched into Australia, trading under "Magnetic Video Australia".
In March 1979, Fox purchased Magnetic Video, which was a small OTC traded public company. In January 1982, shortly after Blay's departure from the company, Fox reorganized Magnetic Video into 20th Century-Fox Video. Around the same time, Magnetic Video began to issue films in laserdisc format. Later that same year, Fox merged its video operations with CBS Video Enterprises, resulting in the creation of CBS/Fox Video on June 18, 1982.
Magnetic Video Corporation famously opened its video releases with an animation of their logo and the words "MAGNETIC VIDEO CORPORATION" repeatedly scrolling upwards and mirrored in the background, and an announcement would come over the mellow guitar and horn music playing :

"By special arrangement with, Magnetic Video Corporation is proud to offer the following motion picture on videocassette."
'''"Magnetic Video, in cooperation with, is proud to offer the following feature on videocassette."'''