National Screen Service (NSS) was a company which controlled the distribution of theatrical advertising materials in the United States from approximately 1940 through the 1980s.
NSS was formed in 1920 to produce and distribute movie trailers on behalf of movie studios. As time went on, NSS gradually took over production and distribution of other forms of movie advertising, until in the 1940s, it signed exclusive contracts with all the major movie studios to produce and distribute posters and other paper advertising materials.
During the 1980s, as the design of movie theaters changed from small, individual screens to large multiplexes, the amount of advertising space available for a given movie dropped; as a result, the wide variety of movie poster sizes extant until that time was consolidated down to just the "one-sheet" size. As this greatly reduced the need for a separate organization to control poster distribution, movie studios took back those responsibilities, and NSS shrank. Also, NSS faced competition in the policy trailer and snipe business from other producers, namely Filmack and Pike Productions. NSS was eventually bought out by Technicolor, Inc. in September 2000.
Three directors of the UK subsidiary bought that company from NSS in 1987. Keeping the name National Screen Service UK, it continued to distribute trailers and print publicity material for all major film studios to all UK cinema chains. In 2000, the company was bought by Carlton Communications (later taken over by ITV plc). It was closed in 2007, following increased competition.
Read more about National Screen Service: NSS Numbers
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