answers: 1948
context: court ruling, it is actually Hughes's agreement with the federal government - signed November 8, 1948 - that was truly the death knell for the Golden Age of Hollywood. Paramount soon capitulated, entering into a similar consent decree the following February. The studio, which had fought against divorcement for so long, became the first of the majors to break up, ahead of schedule, finalizing divestiture on December 31, 1949. By this time, there were 19,000 movie theaters in the United States. Through Hughes's deal with the federal authorities, and those by the other studios that soon followed, the studio system </s> consent decree included the following conditions: The studios did not fully implement the consent decree, and in 1942 with Allied Theatre Owners proposed an alternate "Unity Plan". They proposed booking larger blocks of theatres with the caveat of allowing theaters to reject films. This led to the formation of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers (SIMPP), which also filed a lawsuit against Paramount Detroit Theaters, the first major lawsuit of producers against exhibitors. The government declined the Unity proposal and reinstated the 1943 lawsuit. The case went to trial on October 8, 1945, one month and six days after </s> to fight on and drag out legal proceedings for years as they had already proven adept at—after all, the "Paramount" suit had originally been filed on July 20, 1938. However, behind the scenes at RKO, long the financially shakiest of the conglomerates, the court ruling came to be looked at as a development that could be used to the studio's advantage. The same month that the decision was handed down, multimillionaire Howard Hughes acquired a controlling interest in the company. As RKO controlled the fewest theaters of any of the Big Five, Hughes decided that starting a divorcement domino effect
question: what year did the supreme court rule that the studios had to sell their studios