Hoyts
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Current Logo of Hoyts Cinemas with the slogan There's No Substitute |
Hoyts are an Australian chain of cinema multiplexes. The company is jointly owned by
West Australian Newspapers Limited and
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. Hoyts sold most of its theaters in the United States to
Regal Entertainment Group.
Hoyts operates cinemas in Australia and New Zealand. Their main rivals are
Greater Union and
Village.
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Former Logo of Hoyts Cinemas |
At the start of the
20th century—specifically, in 1909—
Melbourne dentist
Dr Arthur Russell, who was, in his spare time, a cornet player and a magician, purchased a share in a small American travelling circus, known as
Hoyts Circus, and travelled with them as the resident magician. After a financially disastrous run, Russell returned to his work as a dentist.
Undeterred, he leased the old St. Georges Hall in
Bourke Street,
Melbourne(later known as the Hoyts Esquire), and began showing short films on Saturday nights. Unlike his previous venture, it was successful, and as a result, he formed a new company called
Hoyts Pictures Pty. Ltd. By the time he died at the end of World War I, Hoyts had expanded into the suburbs of Melbourne, and into
Sydney.
In
1926, Hoyts and two other companies,
Electric Theatres Pty. Ltd. and
Associated Theatres Pty. Ltd., merged to become
Hoyts Theatres Limited. In
1932, the Fox Film Corporation (now
Twentieth Century Fox) secured a major shareholding in the company.
In August
1982, Twentieth Century Fox sold Hoyts to a group of four Melbourne businessmen. In April
1985, the Fink family brought out the other partners to become the sole owner. The Finks began to expand the company, into areas such as film distribution, home entertainment, and cinema operations in
New Zealand,
USA,
South America and
Europe.
In
1987, the corporation was restructured and two of the companies in the corporation were listed on the
Australian Stock Exchange: Hoyts Media and Hoyts Entertainment. However, the company that owned the cinemas, Hoyts Cinemas, was not floated until 1996. The years between 1987 and 1986 saw considerable expansion, so that by 1994, Hoyts was the 10th biggest cinema chain in the world and was owned by an American investment company—Hellman and Friedman—directors and senior management, and the Australian company Lend Lease Corporation.
In 1996, Hoyts Cinemas was floated and in 1999, the late Kerry Packer's private family company, Consolidated Press Holdings, bought the chain for $620 million dollars. After that, Hoyts began to sell off cinemas. This trend began in 1999 when their
Polish operations were sold, and in
2000 when their UK operations were also sold. In 2003, Hoyts sold its Hoyts America operations to
Regal Entertainment.
In
2004, it joined forces with Village Roadshow and AHL to bail out
Val Morgan Cinema Advertising, eventually taking their stake to 100% in 2005. In December that year, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and West Australian Newspapers purchased the company from
Consolidated Press Holdings.
Hoyts Distribution is the film distribution arm of the company. It existed in its own right in the 1980s-early 1990s, and was later merged with the distribution operations of
Columbia Tristar and
Twentieth Century Fox. In
2002, the company was brought back to life, distributing primarily films produced by
Nine Films and Television,
Channel 9's film production arm, and major independent studios, such as
Lions Gate Films.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hoyts operated the local operations of
RCA-Columbia Pictures Home Video, known as
RCA-Columbia Pictures-Hoyts Home Video. It was later known as
Columbia Tristar Hoyts Home Video, but Hoyts soon dropped out of the business. Hoyts Distribution releases are distributed on video and DVD by
Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment.
There was also four imprints the company had:
First Release Home Entertainment,
Video Box Office,
Magic Window (children's videos) and
RCA-Columbia Pictures International Video.
Hoyts also had a joint venture with
Polygram, forming
Hoyts Polygram Video at the around the same time as their joint venture with RCA-Columbia Pictures Home Video. Their only well known release was the film version of
New Zealand comic strip
Footrot Flats, entitled
Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale.
Hoyts currently has Australia's largest multiplex cinema screen, located in Hoyts cinema 5, Blacktown, Sydney NSW.
In comparison to Greater Union's 25 metre (across) G-Max screens, the cinema screen in Hoyts cinema 5, Blacktown is 26 metres (across)
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Hoyts Cinemas online *
Hoyts Distribution online
