Vestron Video

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Vestron Video logo, from 1987

Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut that was active from the early 1980s to mid-1990s. It is considered to have been a pioneer in the Home Video Market. The company was responsible for releases on VHS videocassette of mostly B-movies, and films from Cannon Films' library. In later years, the company began to shift towards mainstream films, including films released through their Vestron Pictures subsidiary, most notably Dirty Dancing. In addition, the company was the first company to release National Geographic videos in the late 1980s, and was the first to market with a pro wrestling video, "Pro Wrestling Illustrated Presents Lords of the Ring," which beat the first WWE (then known as the WWF) tape to market by a few months.

Vestron, Inc.'s subsidiaries included:

Vestron Video
Vestron Pictures
Vestron Music Video
Vestron International Group
Vestron Video International
Children's Video Library
Lightning Video

Vestron went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1985 with what was at the time a large market cap IPO of $440MM, which was oversubscribed. The company enjoyed success for several years, at one point exceeding 10% of the US video movie market. At its high point sales approximated $350MM annually, and the company sold video movies in over 30 countries either directly or through sub licensing agreements. This was basically a rights business, built by some insightful people who appreciated the video (VCR) rights to films before the major studios did.^{[citation needed]} Eventually the major studios smartened up, and film product became increasingly harder for Vestron to acquire. Also, independent producers increased the price of those available.

The company started to make its own films (Dirty Dancing, Earth Girls Are Easy, Blue Steel), but when the market's preferences matured and shifted from watching almost any film to just watching "A" titles, for which the majors had a stronghold, the company was committed already with a pipeline of about 20 "B" to low "A" projects. Financing for the company fell through and it eventually filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, and was bought out on January 11, 1991 by Los Angeles-based LIVE Entertainment, a home video and music company, for $27.3 million. LIVE acquired Vestron's extensive (3,000 plus) film library. The name was later changed to Artisan Entertainment (which is now a part of Lionsgate).

Their international divisions, got to be the second largest just after Warner's. It had many direct Theatrical, Video and TV distribution offices all around the world in the major markets and even owned a video manufacturing plant in Holland, to supply the Europeans Markets.