Hollywood dealmaking risks antitrust scrutiny

As media giants band together to reinvent themselves in the digital age, potentially sharing everything from online video sites to DVD distribution, they have to be careful not to raise antitrust hackles. Hollywood has long butted heads with competition regulators, dating all the way back to the 1940s when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled studios had too much control over the distribution of their own content and forced them to sell movie theaters. Dealmaking is expected to heat up in the entertainment industry as studios experiment with various ventures and partnerships to tackle tumbling DVD and advertising sales. Some media watchers believe recent collaborations to bring TV programing to the Web -- such as Hulu.com and "TV Everywhere" -- have the potential to raise regulatory eyebrows, resurrecting the issue of "vertical integration."