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Founded by Andre Blay in 1968.1
Magnetic Video Corporation was co-founded in 1968 by American film producer Andre Blay and Leon Nicholson. It was based in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1977, it became the first company to release theatrical motion pictures onto Betamax and VHS videocassette for consumer use. (Cartridge Television, Inc. preceded it in 1972 when it introduced the Avco Cartrivision home VCR with a line of major motion pictures available for rent on the Cartrivision videocassette format. Cartrivision was discontinued a little over a year after its debut.)
Magnetic Video is notable for its contribution to the rise of the modern-day home video empire and the birth of video rental systems. In late 1976, Blay conceived the idea of releasing 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 (VCA) 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 (Soap Cast on Cover).
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! (1969)
Fantastic Voyage (1966)
Von Ryan's Express (1965)
The King And I (1956)
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Patton (1970)
The Hustler (1961)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Cleopatra (1963)
The French Connection (1971)
Hombre (1967)
The Only Game in Town (1970)
Can-Can (1960)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Graduate (1967)
The Desert Fox (1951)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
The Bible (1966)
The Boston Strangler (1968)
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
The Detective (1968)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
The Longest Day (1962)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Robe (1953)
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Dr. Dolittle (1967)
The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)
Vanishing Point (1971)
The Sand Pebbles (1966)
State Fair (1962)
Bus Stop (1956)
Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
From the Terrace (1960)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
How to Steal a Million (1966)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
Anastasia (1956)
Boy on a Dolphin (1957)
The Hot Rock (1972)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
The Paper Chase (1973)
Carmen Jones (1954)
The Razor's Edge (1946)
A Farewell to Arms (1957)
This and similar video stores were a success. Magnetic Video became successful, 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 (Magnetic's first release from ITC was The Muppet Movie), and American Film Theatre
1981: United Artists (UA; including pre-1950 Warner Bros. films which were owned by UA at that time), in addition to establishing short-lived sports and laserdisc divisions.
The Magnetic Video project was such a success that it soon expanded into the United Kingdom with a subsidiary known as "Magnetic Video UK" in 1978. Not long after, Magnetic Video branched into Australia, trading under "Magnetic Video Australia".
In August 1978, Magnetic Video introduced their own videotape copy protection scheme to compete with Copyguard, known as MV-Gard. They used it in all of their tapes produced from 1978 until their reorganization in 1982.
In March 1979, Fox purchased Magnetic Video, which was a small OTC traded public company (Blay was a major shareholder and chairman). 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 its logo and the words "MAGNETIC VIDEO CORPORATION" repeatedly scrolling upwards and mirrored in the background. An announcement would come over the mellow stock synth music (consisting of a guitar, a horn, and hi-hat beats) playing (announcements and music might differ depending on the company):
"By special arrangement with (movie studio name), Magnetic Video Corporation is proud to offer the following (major/classic) motion picture on videocassette."
"Magnetic Video, in cooperation with (movie studio name), is proud to offer the following feature on videocassette." (Alternate)
From Wikipedia’s article on Magnetic Video, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4