Baseline StudioSystems

About Baseline StudioSystems

In 1982, long before the internet reshaped Hollywood, James Monaco founded Baseline, creating a database for the entertainment industry. This service, launched in 1985, offered subscriptions to a repository of information on film and television projects. It was a playbook for an industry built on relationships and information. A few years later, in 1987, a rival database called The Studio System emerged from Brookfield Communications. Baseline's journey involved a series of acquisitions. After Monaco's departure, it was purchased by Paul Kagan Associates in 1993 and then by Big Entertainment (which became Hollywood.com) in 1999. A pivotal moment came in 2004 when Hollywood Media Corp. acquired The Studio System and merged it with its own Baseline/Filmtracker subsidiary, creating the combined entity known as Baseline StudioSystems. The acquisitions continued, with The New York Times Company buying the service for $35 million in 2006, only to sell it back to the previous owners in 2011. Finally, in 2014, Gracenote, a division of Tribune Media, acquired Baseline for $50 million, integrating it into its suite of entertainment data services. Today, as part of Nielsen, it operates as Studio System, a critical tool providing data on everything from box office numbers to production details.