Universal City Studios LLC (doing business as Universal Pictures) is an American film studio owned by Universal Studios, Inc., a division of NBCUniversal, itself owned by Comcast. A member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), it is one of the "Big Five" Hollywood studios, alongside Paramount Pictures, the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, and The Walt Disney Studios. It is also the oldest-running American film studio, having originally been founded on April 30, 1912 as the Universal Film Manufacturing Company by Carl Laemmle, a German-Jewish immigrant who settled in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It was formed from a merger of several film companies: Independent Moving Pictures (IMP), the Powers Motion Picture Company, the Rex Motion Picture Manufacturing Company, the Champion Film Company, the Nestor Film Company, and the New York Motion Picture Company. On March 15, 1915, Laemmle opened Universal City Studios, the world's largest motion picture production facility. In 1923, the company was renamed Universal Pictures Corporation. During the early 1920s, Irving Thalberg was entrusted with most of Universal's production policy decisions. Thalberg made distinct improvements of quality and prestige in Universal's output while dealing with director Erich von Stroheim's inability to control the expense and length of his films. Thalberg eventually fired Stroheim and replaced him with Rupert Julian. Louis B. Mayer lured Thalberg away from Universal in late 1922 to his own growing studio, Louis B. Mayer Productions, and Thalberg continued in the same position when that studio was merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924. Without Thalberg's guidance, Universal became a second-tier studio for several decades. On October 1, 1946, Universal merged with International Pictures to form Universal-International Pictures. International Pictures heads Leo Spitz and William Goetz took control of the studio, while Nate Blumberg and J. Cheever Cowdin remained at the helm of Universal Pictures, the parent company. Universal-International underwent significant expansion with Goetz at the helm. A major move was taking on the U.S. distribution of J. Arthur Rank's UK productions, including acclaimed films like David Lean's Great Expectations and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. The studio also ventured into the non-theatrical market, acquiring home-movie dealer Castle Films and offering "highlights" reels from its film library for home-movie enthusiasts and collectors. In 1948, Universal-International ordered the destruction of all remaining silent film copies to collect the silver nitrate after World War II ended. Despite its expansion efforts, the production arm of the studio struggled to produce hits at the box office. By the late 1940s, Goetz was replaced and the studio returned to its roots of producing low-budget and series films. After Rank lost interest, his shares were sold to investor Milton Rackmil, whose company Decca Records took full control of Universal in 1952. The studio retained the Walter Lantz cartoon studio, which released its output alongside Universal-International's films. On June 18, 1962, the Music Corporation of America (MCA), then the world's largest talent agency, purchased Decca Records, and consequently Universal-International, leaving Rackmil and Edward Muhl in charge as board chairman Dr. Jules Stein and president Lew Wasserman continued to guide MCA. After MCA divested itself of its talent business as a result of a consent decree with the Justice Department, Universal-International reverted back to the Universal Pictures name. In 1963, the motion picture and television operations of Universal Pictures and Revue Productions were merged by MCA into a single entity known as Universal City Studios, Inc.; both names would continue to exist as separate labels (however, Revue would be renamed Universal Television). On November 26, 1990, MCA was acquired by Matsushita Electric (now legally known as Panasonic Holdings Corporation); on June 5, 1995, it was sold to Canadian conglomerate Seagram. On December 9, 1996, MCA was reincorporated and renamed Universal Studios, Inc., and retained ownership of the Universal Pictures film studio. In 1999, Universal absorbed PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. In December 2000, French company Vivendi acquired Seagram, renaming itself Vivendi Universal; the deal was closed in January 2001. In 2004, Vivendi Universal sold 80% of its Vivendi Universal Entertainment division (which included Universal Pictures) to General Electric, then the owner of the NBC television network. GE then merged the operations of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment into a new company known as NBCUniversal. Vivendi owned the remaining 20% of NBCUniversal until January 26, 2011, when it sold its stake back to GE. Two days later, cable provider Comcast acquired a 51% controlling interest in NBCUniversal, before buying it outright for $16.7 billion in March 2013.