From these distributing agents the theater-owner secures his program, the usual practice being to pay a stated weekly rental price, dependent on the number of reels he secures and their freshness. The exhibitor who shows the pictures on the day they are released naturally pays a proportionately larger rental for this “first-run” privilege than the theater-owner who is satisfied with pictures that may be days or weeks old. The latter runs the risk of showing pictures that his patrons have already seen in other theaters, and, naturally, he must expect film that has received the wear and tear of many performances since the day it was released. This method sufficed for the short picture, but the coming of the feature, a production of three or more reels, changed matters considerably. It brought a score of independent producers into the field, and these men set about seeking their own methods of marketing. The first step was the development of “state rights” buyers, usually independent exchange owners who bid for the exclusive rights to handle the feature productions in their territories. The producer sold the rights and the necessary positive prints for the different territories to the highest bidders, and after that he washed his hands of the production, though, of course, he still had the negative, should additional positive prints be needed. The purchaser of the “state rights” was now in absolute control of the picture in his territory. His income was secured by renting the picture to the theater-owners. “State rights” are at present heard of only seldom; they have been succeeded by the “feature program,” a combination of manufacturers of long pictures similar in many ways to the older combinations of the producers of short pictures. The chief advantage of the feature program lies in its certainty. To the theater-owner it offers an assurance of a steady supply of pictures of a certain quality, and in addition he knows the pictures that he will show far enough in advance to properly advertise them. To the picture producer the feature program offers a steady market, with an income that he can estimate, and thus he is enabled to make greater expenditures on each picture and to plan more extensively for the future than would be the case were each production to be sold separately.